Rail Business Daily (RBD), UK rail’s biggest business growth and profile enhancement business and sister company of FM Business Daily, has appointed Chris Leech MBE as Managing Director to spearhead the company’s growth.
With more than 26 years’ experience in the rail industry, Chris will be responsible for steering the strategic direction of RBD and expanding the company’s customer base. He will oversee a growing team of more than 40 current team members, bringing a wealth of knowledge and technical expertise that will be fundamental in helping the business to continue to flourish.
Chris joins RBD following his role as Membership Development Manager at the Rail Safety Standards Board (RSSB) – a senior position he has successfully held for nearly five years and in which time he has significantly grown the organisation’s UK and international membership portfolio across five continents. Through the development of bespoke client engagement frameworks and the acceleration of new international markets, Chris generated significant commercial revenue which enabled the ongoing support to RSSB’s members here in the UK.
Chris has a very strong reputation for building powerful commercial and value-adding professional relationships at home and abroad – a skillset that will be invaluable for RBD’s ongoing journey.
Speaking about his new role, Chris said: “I’m absolutely delighted to be joining RBD and I am excited at the prospect of leading this phenomenal business. Having worked in UK rail across three decades, I have a very clear understanding of supply chain wants, needs and expectations. A number of the smaller suppliers have the innovation and agility to address some of the biggest challenges UK rail faces. I am immensely proud to be given the opportunity to drive the business forward with a fantastic team that has really taken the industry by storm. We have something very different and really special here to offer organisations wanting to grow their market share in UK rail.
“This is a hugely exciting time in the evolution of the brand, which was a key influence in my decision to join David McLoughlin and the team. I firmly believe my many years leading some of the industry’s most successful partnerships will help me to add real value in RBD’s next phase.”
David McLoughlin, Business Daily Group’s CEO, said: “We are delighted that Chris Leech MBE will be joining us as RBD’s new Managing Director. Chris has stand-out experience for the role, having grown membership programmes that are very similar to the RBD Community concept. He brings significant operational experience, a natural customer and people-focused leadership style, together with a fresh perspective that will help us set a new benchmark for customer growth and profile enhancement opportunities.
“Chris joins at a very exciting time for the business as we accelerate our strategy to help organisations in UK rail to grow and prosper. He will lead the business through significant industry change, strengthening our commercial performance, building on our collaborative culture and increasing customer and internal team satisfaction to the highest levels seen in the company’s very short history.
“The Board received enormous interest in the MD role both locally and internationally. Chris’s highly relevant transport and logistics expertise and his strong commercial background made him the ideal candidate to showcase RBD’s services and continue to build momentum.
“His significant leadership in driving transformation and improving customer satisfaction in complex and challenging businesses is highly impressive, and his background in rail provides the right foundation to steer RBD in what promises to be a great future.
“Chris’s appointment marks another milestone in the development of RBD and he inherits a very strong business. We are confident he is well placed to deliver the next phase of our business strategy. It also enables the Board to continue focusing on the expansion into other sectors after the successful launch of FMBusinessDaily.
“We’ve got a full and thriving management team focused on taking RBD and our customers to the next level, and in Chris, we have someone who is totally aligned to our future-fit approach to our clients’ businesses.”
Part of Business Daily Group, RBD is the overarching brand name of the company’s rail business, which includes: RBD Advisory, RBD Marketing Services, RBD News (including Rail Business Daily, Rail Insider, Rail Director and Inside Track), RBD Community and RBD Rail Recruiter. The business has created a phenomenal 34 million opportunities for rail companies to get their message across in the industry each year.
Chris continued: “RBD has a fantastic reputation in UK rail and an incredible reach. The company’s engagement and education activity across track and train is quite remarkable – helping rail organisations to grow and being a complete force for good in the industry.
“There is a real passion in the business for doing the right thing. The leadership team quietly supports a number of important industry initiatives, giving back time and space costing hundreds of thousands of pounds each year working with the likes of Railway Children, White Ribbon, Women in Rail and so much more. I intend to build on this fantastic work.
“I will also continue develop business partnerships where we all support, inspire, influence and contribute in the future success of rail. By respecting the RBD legacy and core values, I will ensure the business reflects the industry’s upcoming Great British Railways transformation.
“I will use my extensive network of people and businesses to reach out to them so they are aware of RBD and can see how working with the company will enhance their reputation and promote what they do and how well they do it – putting them right in front of the people who matter to them.
“My aim is to build ‘power networks’ where I bring together the right people and organisations with mutual benefit and advancement (however this is defined) being the overriding goal.
“I will introduce new faces to RBD Advisory to align with its vision of delivering even more that is relevant and needed with diversity, inclusion, talent management, sustainability and organisational growth underpinning the new services offered. This will include Principal Engineers, Human Factors Specialists, etc.
“RBD employs the best leaders in the business across all of its unique spheres of work – combining to create a powerful entity focused on helping organisations to win. If the recent past has been great, the future really does promise to be superb – and I can’t wait to get stuck in!” Chris will join Rail Business Daily on 13 June 2022.
