Adrian Shooter
Chairman, Chairman Railways
July 9 2007
Adrian Shooter, Chairman of Chiltern Railways and Laing Rail, spoke to a packed crowd at the 9th July Young Professionals Meeting.
Adrian started by stressing that young professionals should always remember the importance of people. He gave some remarkable examples of this from his own career.
Mr Shooter also talked at length about the importance of having a vision.
As leader of one of the few successful Management Buy Outs (MBO), Adrian recalled Chiltern Railways was founded with the vision that the existing “Thames and Chiltern” Network South East service between London Marylebone and Banbury could be extended to Birmingham. This allowed the MBO to offer a business plan with much higher revenue than the other bidders, which won the franchise.
Mr Shooter recalled how looking at America's Southwest Airlines had driven the fledgling MBO's strategy to launch a new London to Birmingham service. Adrian outlined how Chiltern Railways operating between London Marylebone to Birmingham Snow Hill with Turbostar Units, charging Just £15 return, seeks to copy Southwest Airlines culture of keeping costs low, using smaller go anywhere planes, serving secondary airports and having close attention to detail.
The group was entertained by candid recollections from the privatisation process. Although a strong advocate of privatisation, clearly Adrian enjoyed working for British Rail and was very frank in saying why he believes some aspects privatisation could have gone better.
Looking to the future, clearly revenue growth, further improving quality, plus creating new journey opportunities are key to Mr Shooters plans. The Young Professionals were given a sneak preview of some up and coming investment schemes lead by Chiltern Railways and Laing Rail. These include a new Open Access Intercity Service from London to Wales, working with TfL to regenerate some very run down Metro services in London and extending the London to Aylesbury line for a few miles to a new station.
There followed a lengthy Question and Answer session which over ran by almost twenty minutes. Mr Shooter was so impressed by the calibre of Young Professional Members, he even invited any attendees to directly send him their CV!
In all, a very candid, useful and informative talk was enjoyed by those assembled.
Written by John Davidson.
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