Moya Greene, one of the FTSE 100’s few female bosses, is to step down from the helm of Royal Mail.
Greene will retire as chief executive later this year after an eight-year tenure that included the controversial privatisation of Britain’s postal service in 2013.
She will be replaced in June by Rico Back, a Swiss-domiciled German who runs the group’s European subsidiary General Logistics Systems (GLS).
The departure of Greene, who will formally step down from the board in the summer but stay on until September to ensure an “orderly handover”, will leave just six women in charge of FTSE 100 firms.
Royal Mail said Greene, a Canadian national who will leave with a near-£1m payoff, had transformed the business, which had been struggling after services were opened up to competition in 2006.
The group’s chairman, Peter Long, said: “When Moya joined in the summer of 2010, the company was balance sheet insolvent. Since then, Royal Mail has been transformed, including our privatisation in 2013 and two significant, groundbreaking agreements with the CWU [Communications Workers Union].
“Alongside the strong financial position Moya has secured for the company, we have invested over £1.5bn in our UK operation in recent years.”
Royal Mail shares were up nearly 0.4% in morning trading after the announcement.
Its share price soared by 40% on the first day of trading in October 2013, fuelling complaints that the government had sold off a national asset to private investors on the cheap.
Greene, who led Canada Post for five years before joining Royal Mail, said it had been a privilege to serve “this cherished UK institution”. She is currently a non-executive at easyJet and a trustee of Tate, and will become a non-executive director of Rio Tinto later this year.
Back has been a senior executive in the group for 18 years. He was a founding member of German Parcel in 1989, which was bought by Royal Mail in 1999 and later rebranded as GLS.
Royal Mail said Back would receive the same total £790,000 pay and benefits as Greene, with a possible £1.3m bonus, and would pay UK tax.
The company also announced the appointment of Sue Whalley as chief executive of post and parcels at Royal Mail UK, with responsibility for most British revenue and operations.
The six remaining female chief executives of FTSE 100 firms are: Alison Cooper of Imperial Brands; Alison Brittain of Whitbread; Liv Garfield of Severn Trent; Véronique Laury of Kingfisher; Emma Walmsley of GlaxoSmithKline; and Carolyn McCall, who recently moved from easyJet to ITV.
