New chief executive for DPD announced

The Smethwick-based company has promoted Elaine Kerr, who has been with the business for more than 28 years.

The previous chief executive Dwain McDonald, who had been in post since 2008, left the business at the end of March.

His departure followed an internal investigation by the Smethwick-based company.

Yves Delmas, as chief operating officer of DPDgroup Europe, took over as interim chief executive officer.

Elaine Kerr will take up her post at the start of next month and she will report to Mr Delmas.

The appointment will take effect from 1 June 2021 and Elaine will report to Yves Delmas, Chief Operating Officer DPDgroup Europe.

She joined as a sales executive based in the North West, followed by roles of customer relationship manager and head of CRM before being promoted to the DPD UK senior management team in 2008 as director of CRM. In 2020 she became executive director, sales, crm and customer services.

Mr Delmas said: "Elaine has had a tremendous career with DPD and has been instrumental in growing our customer portfolio to include some of the most prestigious brands and securing our continued growth, both domestically and internationally.

"Her passion for ensuring that we put our customers at the heart of everything we do continually improves the customer experience and keeps us striving to deliver the next innovation.

"Elaine will now continue this success story in the role of CEO, building on the strengths of the senior management team to lead the business to a new chapter, and I wish her every success in her new role."

DPD, which also has a major sorting hub site in Oldbury, had turnover of more than £1 billion for its last financial year.

DPD Group UK turnover rose from £972.8 million to £1.02bn for the 12 months to December 29 with pre-tax profits down from £142.4m to £135m.

The delivery firm operates from more than 60 locations across the UK and has more than 13,000 employees.

It announced plans in June last year to create 6,000 new jobs and plans to invest £200m to expand its capacity in response to the boom in online shopping as a result of Covid-19.

Its plans include expansion of its next-day parcel capacity, spending £100m on vehicles, £60m on 15 new regional depots and the remainder on technology.