New Managing Director for c2c

Award winning train company c2c today announced the appointment of a new Managing Director - Mark Hopwood - a career railwayman.

Mark, aged 34, joined British Rail straight from school, aged 17, in 1989. After taking three years study leave at university, where he graduated in politics, he started his railway career in earnest in the Thames Valley on what was then British Rail's Western Region in a number of operating and station management roles, which included Area Retail Manager, Slough and Performance Manager, Thames Trains.

After a short spell at infrastructure provider, Railtrack (now Network Rail), Mark joined First North Western in 2001 as Operations Director based in Manchester. Since February 2004, he has been Operations Director at Londonlines where he has led a programme of performance improvement which has seen c2c, Silverlink and WAGN all occupying places towards the top of the national performance (PPM) league as well as driving higher levels of customer satisfaction.

After 17 years in the rail industry being appointed Managing Director at c2c is a great privilege , said Mark. I have the support of a great management team and a strong, enthusiastic workforce who share my determination to offer our customers a good service every day. My priority will be to ensure that we maintain and build upon our position as a punctual, safe and customer-focused rail business - that's what our customers expect.

I am taking up the position of Managing Director at a time of change as the new Londonlines organisation is created and we build on c2c's successes and seek to grow revenue and improve staff and customer satisfaction. I want to work with the team here at c2c to improve still further the quality of service as we address these challenges.

Mark, who lives in North London, is married to Helen and has two young children. He is a graduate of the University of Essex, is studying for an MBA at the University of Warwick and is a Member of the Institute of Railway Operators.