From ticket office to customer experience boss: Meet TPE’s newest director

He will lead TransPennine Express’ (TPE) 650-person strong customer experience team who take care of 26 million customers annually on up to 337 services every day, connecting the major cities and destinations across the North of England and Scotland.  

Andrew’s remarkable career spans 10 years at TPE and includes working in the train operator’s ticket offices, being part of the station teams at Huddersfield and Manchester Airport and working in Manchester’s control room managing disruptions. He has also held leadership roles covering contract management, sustainability, business planning, and stakeholder relations with the Department for Transport and Rail North Partnership.

Andrew, who is from St Helens, can even be partly credited for Huddersfield’s beloved station cat Felix’s rise to fame, having been the one to dress her in her first ever uniform – a tiny high-vis jacket.  

Although he says he stumbled into his first role at TPE, he quickly fell in love with the rail industry and feels his time working in customer-facing roles will be a huge help in his new position.  

He said: “The time I spent in frontline jobs was invaluable – they gave me a really good insight into how the industry works, and the challenges both colleagues and customers face.” 

As he takes on his new role, Andrew’s immediate focus is on performance, reliability, and customer satisfaction. 

He said: “Performance needs to be paramount, to help us rebuild customer confidence and trust, and show that we’re getting the basics right. We need to be giving customers consistently good experience – all the way from catering and cleaning to how we manage customer queries. 

“There’s been real positives recently, with cancellations reduced by 70% in the last 12 months, and thanks to our new timetable we now have hundreds more seats on trains for our customers and services across the Pennines running every 15 minutes.”