Q&A: RICHARD BROWN
RICHARD BROWN DIRECTOR CHAIRMAN AT EUROSTAR
What brought you into the industry/your position? I started in the industry 35 years ago - it was then British Rail of course. I joined as a management trainee after university for three reasons really; in a way it was the most interesting job available, potentially a lot more variety and I could see myself making a career in the industry, which has proved to be the case! But as well as that, it was the most worthwhile job because railways and transport are something that actually touches everybody’s lives and is really important in everyday life, whether its commuters, travellers going on holiday or logistics and carrying goods. I joined Eurostar 10 years ago as Chief Executive and took a step back from that over two years ago because my Deputy, Nicolas Petrovic, was ready to step up to the position. I thought it was the right time to let him take over as seven and a half years is long enough as Chief Executive! I’m a firm believer that when you know it is your sell by date, it is already too late. So I wanted to move on to something new before I got stale! So now I chair the board and manage the shareholders and leave Nicolas to run Eurostar.
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What developments do you expect to see in the next five years at Eurostar International? The next five years are going to be really exciting at Eurostar as we’ve got a new fleet of trains being built at the moment - ten new high speed trains being built by Siemens, with the first one due to come into service next year and the entire fleet by 2015.
“I am quite confident in saying we will have the best railway in Europe in ten years’ time.”
As well as that, we are refurbishing all of our existing train sets and the spec for the designers, who design Ferrari, is to make the old trains look like new. The first refurbished train will come out later this year, so we are excited about that. And because we have new trains, we will have more capacity in the fleet. So we are looking at how we can extend Eurostar’s footprint to new destinations, as the whole idea really is
to make Eurostar attractive to people who want to travel further afield than Paris or Brussels or coming from other towns and cities than London or the South East.
What is your greatest career achievement to date? What I’m most proud of is our move from Waterloo to St. Pancras, which was around four years ago now, in November 2007. This was when we moved the whole operation overnight pretty seamlessly. We achieved 94% punctuality on the first day of running, which included not only a new timetable, but a new route, a new station and a new maintenance facility. I think that any railway person will know that achieving good punctuality on the first day of just a new timetable is ambitious enough, so considering all of the other brand new factors involved as well, I’m pretty proud of that.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
The people. The people I work with, within Eurostar and some of our suppliers and partners, but I get the biggest kick out of talking to
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