10) Dwain McDonald
Title: Chief executive, DPDgroup UK
Five MT Awards in one night? Only McDonald has managed that. He might not like us saying it, but McDonald has led the biggest success story in UK road transport in not just the past year, but the past decade.
Back in August 2006 the company had a turnover of £199m – in 2014 it was up to £829m. In that time McDonald has also led the development of DPDs Predict technology and with its one hour deliver window its still the market-leading application in the B2C parcels world. Growth at DPD, and its sister business Interlink Express, has been so phenomenal the company has been able to open allegedly Europe’s largest automated sorting hub in Hinkley, Leicestershire (at the cost of £100m) in order to cope with demand.
McDonald takes his inspiration from Steve Jobs and Apple (as well as the Four Seasons chains of hotels) and Jobs once said: “Just make it great” – McDonald has arguably followed that advice to the letter.
- Every day over Christmas and the New Year we will be counting down the Motor Transport Power Players from 20 to one, so come back tomorrow at 9am to see who is next in our countdown. As ever, we'd welcome your feedback and input into the debate. Send us your thoughts on Twitter @Motor_Transport using #MTPowerPlayers
