Year: 2002

If you were thinking about becoming the Royal Mail’s new chief executive, there are two ways to look at the job. It’s either a marvellous opportunity to reinvigorate a sleeping giant, establish yourself as a management titan and win a gong at the Palace; or it’s a political, financial and regulatory monster with a voracious appetite for destroying those who try to change it. Adam Crozier, who signed up for the task last week, is a former advertising executive and therefore a congenital optimist. Like most graduates of that flaky profession, he instinctively believes that with smoke, mirrors and a slick line in patter you can get away with murder. Which is just as well, because he’ll need to kill a few of the Royal Mail’s nastier habits if he’s going to deliver a nationwide operation that’s both efficient and profitable. Crozier’s most recent position was chief executive at the Football Association. So if nothing else, he’s experienced at wrestling with an intransigent institution. At the FA, he earned plaudits for jazzing up the marketing of the England team and showing an eye for a winner when he brought in Sven Goran Eriksson as coach. But, quite frankly, the standard of management in professional football is generally so miserable that you need only to sit the right way round on a lavatory seat for the sport’s insiders to hail you as genius. The evidence so far is that Crozier is competent but no rocket scientist.

Royal Mail managers fear that the number of letters being sent during the vital Christmas period is down on last year, posing questions about a fast turnaround of the loss-making group.

Managing director of mail services Jerry Cope told senior executives last week mail volumes were down on last year by more than 5 per cent. Executives voiced fears that Christmas post was being replaced by email and that business volumes were down.

Royal Mail yesterday closed ranks around its new deputy chairman after allegations that Elmar Toime had presided over extravagant spending at a subsidiary of New Zealand Post where he is chief executive.
Mr Toime’s appointment to Royal Mail came days after opposition MPs in New Zealand demanded his resignation after the country’s auditor-general condemned “wasteful and excessive” spending at Transend Worldwide, a New Zealand Post unit. Royal Mail said: “We have complete confidence in the appointment of Elmar Toime. He was appointed on the basis of his proven track record and this issue has been dealt with by New Zealand Post.”