Five months since Jonathan Smith announced his departure from Yodel, the parcel carrier today revealed the new man who will be filling his shoes. Introducing Neil Lloyd, the new Yodel chief executive, who joins the carrier from catering firm ISS UK.We are likely to be seeing more new faces at the carrier in the coming months, since a chief customer officer role was created in September (temporarily managed by strategic accounts director Peter Fisher) and commercial director Adam Smith and chief information officer Greg Smith left the business at the end of October. But will a change in management help the firm achieve its goal of getting back into the black?
Things are looking up for the carrier after it had a successful, streamlined, Christmas, delivering over 14 million parcels during the peak and leaving very few left in the network after Christmas Eve.
The Hub is interested to see how Lloyd will face up to his new role, given his background outside of parcels. When Smith lead the company through its creation (don't the days of HDNL and DHL Domestic seem a distant memory?), his CV has over two decades of experience in the parcels’ industry, including management roles at City Link and British Rail’s Red Star parcels business in the 1990s.
Is a parcel industry newbie the answer to Yodel’s problems? The Hub will be keeping a close eye on how the new management team performs.