Friday 19 Jul 2024
Acting chair appointed at Network Rail
- Region & Route:
- National
Following the appointment of Lord Peter Hendy as Minister of State at the Department for Transport, Network Rail’s senior non-executive director, Mike Putnam, has been appointed as acting chair.
Mr Putnam joined the Board of Network Rail in 2018 and has over 25 years’ executive experience across the development, construction and services sectors, and successfully delivered high profile projects. Mike was president and chief executive officer of Skanska UK plc until May 2017. Mike is a chartered engineer and a fellow of both the Institution of Civil Engineers and Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors.
Commenting on his appointment, Andrew Haines, Network Rail chief executive, said: "Mike has been an invaluable member of our Board for over six years and his immense experience will continue to be a huge asset to the Board, to me and to the company."
Network Rail acting chair, Mike Putnam, said: “Peter’s are big shoes to fill as I help to push Network Rail forward to address its key priorities of running a safe and better performing railway, whilst helping Andrew to get the company, and the whole industry ready, for its journey into a new chapter with the establishment of Great British Railways.”
Notes to Editors
- Mike is currently also an independent non-executive director of TransPennine Route Upgrade, a non-executive director of Bazalgette Tunnel Limited(Thames Tideway); vice chair of the Supervisory Board of Arcadis NV and a non-executive director with Finning Inc of Vancouver
- Mike will be stepping down as a non-executive director of Southern Water Services at the end of the month after seven years
- The process of appointing a successor to Lord Hendy will begin in due course and be led by the Transport Secretary
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We own, operate and develop Britain's railway infrastructure; that's 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations. We run 20 of the UK's largest stations while all the others, over 2,500, are run by the country's train operating companies.
Usually, there are almost five million journeys made in the UK and over 600 freight trains run on the network. People depend on Britain's railway for their daily commute, to visit friends and loved ones and to get them home safe every day. Our role is to deliver a safe and reliable railway, so we carefully manage and deliver thousands of projects every year that form part of the multi-billion pound Railway Upgrade Plan, to grow and expand the nation's railway network to respond to the tremendous growth and demand the railway has experienced - a doubling of passenger journeys over the past 20 years.
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