Northern has appointed former London Underground chief Chris Clarke as its new head of operational delivery for the North West.
Clarke has 13 years’ worth of experience at Transport for London where he was responsible for resource planning of the 6,000-station-staff on the London Underground. He also led major IT projects for the operations team.
On his appointment, regional director at Northern, Craig Harrop, said: “Chris’ appointment as head of operational delivery for the North West is a testament to his operational knowledge, hard work and commitment to keeping Northern moving.
“In this role, Chris will play a pivotal part in ensuring our services across the region are resilient to the challenges they face.”
Clarke moved to Northern in January 2022, first joining as disruption controller before becoming regional improvement manager in August 2022.
“I’m really enjoying my time at Northern,” said Clarke who also spent five years as operations manager for the Victoria line.
“The North West represents a huge part of the Northern network and I’m looking forward to getting stuck in and helping to improve service reliability for customers.”
The news comes just a few months after Northern initiated a major shake-up to its leadership team, when it welcomed a new managing director and chief operating officer.
In May, Northern confirmed that Tricia Williams, who had occupied the COO role since 2020, would be taking over as managing director from Nick Donovan.
Matt Rice was replacing Williams, joining from Network Rail where he was North and East route director.
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Image credit: Northern
