Arriva appoints Tom Joyner as Managing Director of CrossCountry

Arriva, one of Europe’s leading passenger transport companies, announced today that Tom Joyner has been appointed Managing Director of CrossCountry. Tom joined Arriva in 2017, overseeing the successful end of the Arriva Train Wales franchise before taking up a leadership role focused on developing a customer strategy for Arriva UK Trains.

Tom takes over the leadership of CrossCountry from Andy Cooper, who retires after successfully running the franchise for over a decade.

Welcoming the appointment, Chris Burchell, Arriva’s MD for UK Trains said: “I am very pleased that Tom has agreed to take up the leadership role at CrossCountry. I am confident that Tom’s mix of operational and customer strategy leadership experience will bring fresh thinking to CrossCountry and help drive standards up even higher than those already achieved by Andy and the team.” 

Tom Joyner has enjoyed a diverse career in the rail industry working in various operational and customer strategy leadership roles.

Before joining Arriva as Managing Director of Arriva Train Wales in October 2017, he was Passenger Services Director for London Midland.  While there, he was instrumental in London Midland being named the most improved organisation for customer service in Britain by the Institute of Customer Service.

Tom has also held board and leadership roles at First Group and National Express train operating companies – as well as two years spent developing future projects at Network Rail.

Commenting on his appointment Tom Joyner said: “I am excited to join CrossCountry as I know first-hand how you can transform the travel experience for customers by putting them at the very centre of your business strategy. My focus, working with the excellent team at CrossCountry, will be to find new ways of anticipating and meeting the needs of our customers and build relationships based on trust.”

Andy Cooper retires after a lifelong career in the rail industry.  During his 11-year tenure as Managing Director of CrossCountry, he successfully increased passenger numbers from 32 to 40 million journeys each year and was key to the franchise winning the overall UK Excellence Award in 2016 - the highest award for quality management by the British Quality Foundation.