This year’s Motor Transport Awards recognised former Hermes Europe CEO Carole Walker’s determination to redefine parcels delivery across three decades of hard work.
After 32 years in the parcels delivery industry, Carole Walker took early retirement from her role as CEO of Hermes Europe earlier this year, days before she was announced as the winner of the Service to Industry Award. One judge summed her up as “the most outstanding CEO I have ever met”, a sentiment echoed by the rest of panel of senior industry figures and previous winners.
Walker started out as a graduate with mail order company Grattan in 1987, becoming operations director of Hermes UK (formerly Parcelnet) in 2001 after completing her MBA. Three years later she was made MD and in 2009 took the top job of CEO after Parcelnet was rebranded to Hermes UK. In 2017 her success in the UK led to her being promoted to CEO of Hermes Europe, taking on responsibility for all the European logistics activities of the Otto Group.
Like many senior figures in the industry, Walker got into logistics “by accident”.
“I did a science degree in botany and came back home to Bradford and went to a careers fair,” she says. “Grattan was the largest private employer so I applied for a marketing job even though I hadn’t done a marketing degree. The person I spoke to asked if I would consider anything else and I said ‘yes, just give me a job’ so I started in customer services and did that for two or three years.”
Grattan had a large warehouse at Listerhills that was not operating to maximum efficiency and Walker’s boss asked if she would be interested in helping sort it out.
“They were looking for bright people to come in and use their leadership skills to make it work, so I just went for it,” says Walker. “That was one of my learnings – any opportunity that came my way, I have gone for. I haven’t over-thought it or worried if I had the right skills – if I had a chance it was always ‘let’s go for it’.”
Walker spent the next eight years in warehousing before deciding she didn’t want to do that forever.
“I wanted some variety,” she says. “That’s when I decided to do an MBA. Without the MBA I wouldn’t have had the career I have had. It is about confidence and breadth of knowledge, but my story is also one of right time, right place, working hard and being willing to take the next step.”
Walker was a fierce advocate of the sometimes controversial model of using self-employed ‘lifestyle’ couriers for final-mile deliveries. “The best thing about Hermes is the couriers who do our doorstep deliveries,” Walker told MT in 2010. “They set us apart from the other home delivery companies.”
The flexible working allowed by Hermes enables people with childcare and other commitments to fit the delivery work around their busy lives; 35% of its couriers are women.
But generally logistics has not done a great job of diversifying its workforce, with women still under-represented in most roles.
“I have tried to encourage women in our industry,” Walker says. “The perception of HGV driving is still that it is a man’s job. Hermes does have women drivers but they are still very rare.
“Driving a truck can be fun and exciting but the facilities are poor and women do not think of it as a pleasant environment. So we have to make changes if we are to encourage people in. Maybe we don’t start with HGVs, maybe we start with vans and couriers where there are already more women.”
Walker said Everywoman and Women in Logistics do a “brilliant job” of celebrating successful women in the industry but believes employers have to do more to make it an attractive place of work for women and ethnic minorities. “We have been talking about the driver shortage for 10 years but having spent the last two years in Germany I can see how acute the situation there is,” she says. “It is having an increasing effect in the UK as well and to shut off a huge section of the population is suicidal.”
Job satisfaction
Hermes has won five MT Awards under Walker’s stewardship, including the coveted Customer Care category in 2012, as she transformed Hermes UK into a multichannel delivery solution with customer experience at its heart.
Looking back on her career, two things have given Walker the most satisfaction. “One is seeing so many of my team grow and perform,” she says. “In my 32 years I have seen people take on responsibility they would never have imagined and deliver fantastic results and I am deeply proud of what the teams I have worked in have achieved. I am a big fan of awards ceremonies and in every part of the business I have been in we had at least annual and sometimes quarterly awards, which often the people in the business voted for. It is so rewarding to see what people can do.
“The other has to be the development of Hermes in the UK over the past decade or so. When I started with Parcelnet in 2001 its turnover was approximately £120m and last year we turned over £750m. It has seen growth rates of 15% for the past six years or more – that was not just a one-off, it was year after year.
“Hermes has been transformed. It is now a digital and technology business and it is getting into the customer experience side. It has been hard work and there is no magic formula – it takes total energy and total focus every day for a lifetime.”
Colleagues were quick to pay tribute to Walker’s management style and dedication, describing her as firm but fair, calm, forward-thinking, inspiring, dedicated and a meticulous planner.
Kay Schiebur, Otto Group executive board member for services, also spoke highly of Walker. “In her many years working for Hermes, Carole has achieved extraordinary success. Her tremendous specialist expertise, and not least her strong personality as a leader, have enabled her to play a major role in shaping it.”
Her replacement as UK CEO, Martijn de Lange, paid a glowing tribute to Walker. “I’d describe Carole as strategic, utterly fair and very organised,” he said. “She’s very action-oriented and has always been close to the business, for both the operation and clients. Carole can potentially come across as tough and demanding at work, but only because she wants the best. On a personal level, Carole is fantastic fun to hang out with – she lives by the ethos of ‘work hard, play hard’, and has been a great friend and mentor. I’ll be forever grateful for her support.”
De Lange acknowledged her pivotal role in making Hermes the successful third party home delivery operator it is today. “Carole has transformed Hermes from what was traditionally the operations arm of a retailer into the second largest delivery company in the UK,” he said. “She’s achieved this firstly through acquisition, bringing in two leading courier networks, then by taking risks to drive Hermes to multi-channel, creating successful platforms such as ParcelShops, International and myHermes (now our Hermes Send C2C arm).
“Carole was also with us at the start of our CX journey and has pushed us to become more consumer-focused. She’s also truly shaped the culture of Hermes UK, leading our down-to-earth approach, our very Yorkshire attitude to commercials – that is, spend money like it’s your own – always being fair and working hard. Carole has been an anchor for the business whilst shaping our future, and it’s also clear that she’s been an important figurehead for the industry as a whole.”
Delighted
Walker was surprised and happy to receive the Service to Industry Award. “I never expected it,” she said afterwards. “It is fabulous recognition and I was so delighted.”
While she is now officially retired and enjoying a well-earned break she says she might be willing to play some sort of ambassadorial role to help promote logistics as a career, especially for women. “I am just a few weeks into retirement and after 32 years it is all about me!” she laughs. “Around 12 years ago I spoke at a Women in Logistics event and a number of people said how much inspiration and courage they took from that. It was my personal story of where I had struggled and learned and been terrified, and also where I had succeeded. Women tend to feel they need more skills and capability than a man before they even apply for a job and my message was that if you have the right spirit, then just go for it.”