Its been a busy time for appointments at Nexus with both a new Chief Operating Officer and a Head of Maintenance Delivery announced in their new roles. Martin Kearney, most recently Chief Officer for Train and Ferry Operations at Transdev Australia, has been named as the new Chief Operating Officer at Nexus with Steven Shiel, currently Head of Rail and Civil Engineering at Newcastle College Rail Academy, taking on the role of Head of Maintenance Delivery.
Mr Kearney’s role will see him directing all the day-to-day activities that Nexus delivers – including the Tyne and Wear Metro – as well as leading its senior management team. The Head of Maintenance Delivery role being taken by Mr Shiel will see him take responsibility for leading Metro’s orange army of staff who work around the clock in all weathers to keep Metro running.
Speaking about his appointment Mr Kearney said: “Nexus will be at the heart of North East England’s ambitions to transform local transport in the years ahead, as we introduce a £362 million new Metro train fleet and rise to the exciting challenge to modernise and re-invigorate public transport across the North East. I am excited to be relocating back to the North of England and I can’t wait to join the team of 1,200 staff at Nexus who are proud to be delivering the best possible local services to customers. I am looking forward to working with local authority and industry partners to help drive economic growth in a sustainable way – using great public transport to support jobs and opportunity across our communities.”
Mr Kearney has over 30 years experience in the public transport industry having started his career at British Rail before going on to work in rail across the north of England. In December 2012 he made the switch to New Zealand to head up a major project implementing a new fleet of trains and transforming the rail network in Auckland. For the past three years he has been running the Sydney Harbour ferry service as well as ferries in Brisbane and the Auckland and Wellington rail businesses.
He will start his new role on 20th January 2020.
Steven Shiel will bring a wealth of experience to the role with 13 years experience at Network Rail in a variety of maintenance and projects roles. He said: ““I’m really excited to be joining Nexus. It’s a dream job for me and a fantastic opportunity. I can’t wait to get started. Metro is an iconic local brand and I am proud to be leading its maintenance teams. I want to ensure that we continue to keep up our excellent commitment to safe working. That is the top priority at all times. I also want to look at everything that we do and see how we can do more to increase customer satisfaction. I’ll be out there, engaging with frontline staff to see what we do well and what best practices we can share. I’m also fully committed to training and development and I want to see us bring through the next generation of workers. Nexus is doing great work on this already and I want to build on that. It’s an exciting time to be joining Metro. We are looking ahead to a new train fleet, which is going to transform the service, and we are continuing to modernise the infrastructure. The aim is to ensure that the Tyne and Wear Metro is around for many more years to come, and it’s absolutely fantastic that I have the chance to play my part in that.”
Steven will take on the role from 9th December.
Meanwhile, Tobyn Hughes will continue to have overall responsibility for Nexus as its Director General as part of his new and wider remit as Managing Director Transport North East. He will be dividing his time between Nexus and leading the regional transport team in developing future strategy and investment programmes, as well as growing partnerships with national and regional bodies.