Our guest is Susan Cooklin, Managing Director of Network Rail’s Route Services organisation.
Susan shares with us her manifesto for Route Services and how they are driving carbon reduction while becoming more resilient to extreme weather conditions. She describes how they help staff across all of Route Services have a clear line of sight to its purpose. She also outlines what she sees ahead for Network Rail and how she is preparing Route Services to support that.
Susan reports to the Chief Executive, as part of the executive committee. She currently chairs the National Strategy Committee for Sustainable Growth and owns the enterprise-wide risk for cyber security. Susan’s role consists of leading a directorate of circa 6,000 people with an annual spend of approximately £2 billion, comprising IT, shared services, logistics, telecoms and contracts and procurement. Her specific areas of expertise include transformational cultural change and the creation and implementation of technology strategies.
She was previously Chief Information Officer for 6 years at Network Rail and is a strategic thinker with deep operational experience and has over ten years’ experience at board level, having held non-executive directorships at Electricity North West Limited, Leeds Beckett University and Leeds Building Society. For 5 years, Susan also chaired a global consultancy business, Network Rail Consulting Ltd.
Susan Cooklin