Q. What is your background?
A. My journey to the boardroom started on the shop floor, picking for a logistics company. Since then, I’ve worked in several logistics businesses, working my way up through the ranks, from smaller local operations through to global distribution businesses. I didn’t start out with the ambition to aim for the top job, but I was lucky enough to have people around me who championed me and believed in my potential, even at points when I did not. As a female in a male-dominated industry, I did always question ‘why not?’ if I was told that I couldn’t do something, which I hope has changed the perceptions of some of the people around me and inspired others to achieve their potential. I love to work in businesses where the team is at the forefront, and I have found this at Boughey, where there is a real entrepreneurial spirit and I have great colleagues who complement my skill set.
Q. What do you do at NWF?
A. We have a team of nearly 800 colleagues and I am responsible for leading them to safely deliver an on time, in full (‘OTIF’) service and have a little bit of fun whilst doing it! Our people and culture feature at the very heart of what we do and I’ve been keen to empower my team with the freedom and creativity for us to drive innovation and growth. My day-to-day responsibilities can be varied, from media work to promote the business and visiting customers, to presenting our exciting new strategy to the NWF Group plc Board. More recently, a lot of my time has been spent working on our impact assessment for our B Corp certification application. For further details on this, please see page 51 of the Annual Report and Accounts 2023
Q. What does the future look like for your division?
A. I’m proud of what we’ve achieved at both revenue and headline PBT levels and I’m excited about what the future holds for us. Since I’ve been with the business, we’ve increased our revenue year-on-year and set an ambitious but achievable growth strategy. Alongside my senior management team, we have recently had our ambitious five-year strategy approved which will enable the business to grow over the coming years. We acknowledge that we operate in a challenging industry with an uncertain economic backdrop, but we are confident that our plans are achievable and we can navigate the path forward.
We are also looking forward to the outcome of our B Corp application. If we are successful in achieving certification, we will be one of the first logistics companies to attain the status, which would be a great achievement. However, the principles of the movement fit so well with our own ESG strategy and overall values that, irrespective of the outcome, we will look to continuously improve from the strong baseline we have set ourselves.