Moya Greene, Royal Mail’s modernising chief

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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The Canadian driving the sell-off of the UK institution will need all her tenacity, says Brian Groom

There have been many forceful characters in the 500-year history of the Royal Mail, the British institution that taught the world how to deliver letters. Among the most unexpected is a small Canadian – a “bundle of energy”, say admirers – who is driving the service towards privatisation.

For the past three years Moya Greene, 58, has been chief executive of Royal Mail, the first woman and first non-Briton to run it since Henry VIII established a “master of the posts” in 1512. By reshaping it as a business focused on parcels, taking advantage of the boom in internet shopping, she has paved the way for the government to float the company – which has £9bn revenues and 150,000 staff – on the London Stock Exchange in the coming months.

That is a bit late, some might think, for the nation that led the global wave of privatisation under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. But even the Iron Lady balked at the political risk of selling off a public service that carried the Queen’s head on its stamps.

Like Thatcher, Ms Greene is noted for tenacity. She has been relentless, for example, in persuading the government and the regulator to relax heavy-handed constraints on Royal Mail’s freedom to raise prices and alter products that she regarded as unjustified. Profit margins are improving, though still behind those of operators such as Germany’s Deutsche Post DHL.

“I suspect she irritates the people she goes at with such remorselessness but, frankly, look at the results,” says a leading industry figure. “She just focuses her stare on something and goes for it, and beware if you are in the way.”

In other respects Ms Greene seems un-Thatcher-like. While she had poor relations with trade unions in her previous job running Canada Post, she has made a point of collaborating with them at Royal Mail, improving on the record of her predecessor. Despite this, strikes are threatened but that has more to do with political opposition to privatisation than with her.

Last September she ruffled feathers by volunteering to lead the campaign for recruitment quotas for women in the workplace, including the boardroom – an approach unpopular among British female executives, who prefer to see themselves as appointed on merit.

“If you want quotas, I am open to leading that discussion,” she told a conference of female trade unionists. “There is something about the UK – for all its egalitarianism, women are not represented as they should be in society or companies.”

This is a year of the Canadian in the UK, with Mark Carney newly arrived as governor of the Bank of England. Ms Greene, divorced with a grown-up daughter, she says she loves Britain and has embraced its way of life. She enjoys travelling on London’s red buses and goes walking at weekends all over the country.
Despite her work-focused image, she has a cultural hinterland. She reads poetry, including Robert Frost and Ted Hughes, because it is easier to fit into a busy executive’s life than novels. “You can get through a poem in 15 or 20 minutes as long as it’s not TS Eliot,” she says.

Ms Greene was the second of four children born to a special-education teacher and a DIY shop owner in St John’s, Newfoundland, on Canada’s eastern tip – a part of the nation with a no-nonsense reputation. Her mother told her: “Never let anything go to your head.” She studied classics at Memorial University of Newfoundland and went to Toronto’s Osgoode Hall Law School, but quickly found her way into government, where she held federal positions in seven ministries.

Her biggest assignment came in the early 1990s, when as assistant deputy minister of Transport Canada she oversaw the privatisation of CN Rail and deregulation of the country’s airline and ports systems. At Employment and Immigration Canada, a government office, she overhauled the unemployment insurance system.

She moved to the private sector as managing director for infrastructure finance at TD Securities, a Canadian broker, then ran retail products at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce before becoming senior vice-president for operational effectiveness at Bombardier, the engineering company. There she was charged with turning round its operation in Europe. She closed seven factories and cut 8,000 jobs.

In 2005 Ms Greene became chief executive of mail service Canada Post, which serves half as many households as there are in Britain scattered across an area larger than Europe. She spent her first few months joining letter sorters on night shifts and walking delivery routes, and managed to meet all 3,000 frontline supervisors.

She cut costs by reducing absenteeism and increasing automation, trebling profits despite a drop in revenues. There was criticism, however. When she left, Denis Lemelin, president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, said: “She was a neoconservative ideologist. Always thinking about profit. She was always going after disabilities, sick leave, pension. It was like dealing with a private CEO instead of a public CEO.”

In 2010 she was hired by Donald Brydon, Royal Mail chairman, to be chief executive, following Adam Crozier. Mr Crozier had tried to make Royal Mail more efficient, investing in new sorting technology, but was dogged by poor industrial relations.

Ms Greene has sped up modernisation, notably by reducing the number of mail centres, though executives admit the company is still 15 years behind Deutsche Post in efficiency. Despite making progress, she refuses to get carried away. “We should let a few years go by and let’s see how we deliver over the medium term,” she said in May.

The head of another privatised European postal service says: “If I were advising Moya I would say: do more of the same, in a regular, disciplined and organised way. But she has started well.”

[UnhappyGremlin]

Modernising chief?
More like self serving hatchet woman.

“We should let a few years go by and let’s see how we deliver over the medium term,” she said in May.

That would be delivering job cuts, wage cuts, and excessive profits for the few.
As well as massive dividends for the board who will have hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of shares.
And they wonder why the staff aren't enthusiastic about privatisation.

[JaneM]

Witnessed Moya in action yesterday and frankly was not surprised or impressed,she is a neocon ideologue who views the public sector with disdain and incapable of modernising and progressing in government hands,she has a clear agenda,one fuelled by arrogance and dogma.

[Ahebban]

Any fool can write-off 'x' number of jobs, raise product prices and deliver a profit

[barbario]

Any fool can write-off 'x' number of jobs, raise product prices and deliver a profit

As well as selling off land and property to make it look like we are making a bigger profit than we actually are.

[DirtyHarry]

Who are they trying to kid?
You could teach a Barbary Ape to do what Moya Greene's doing.
As has already been said, any fool can slash jobs, make the service more expensive for consumers, and deliver a profit.

There will be no getting away from it, if they force this privatisation through, it will be to the eternal shame of the British people, given they know full-well what has happened with regard to previous privatisations of vital public assets.
This must not happen.
It should not happen.

[johno47]

Not hard to have an incentive to privatise when your only in the job for 5 years and offered £1.5million a year and £3million plus a good whack out of our pension when you go to do it.

[UnhappyGremlin]

Not hard to have an incentive to privatise when your only in the job for 5 years and offered £1.5million a year and £3million plus a good whack out of our pension when you go to do it.

Not to mention the tax efficient and vast amount of shares she'll get after.

[steven100]

And famous Canadian Porn star . She doesn't halve screw the workers.