SPEAKERS

Mary Creagh MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Transport

First elected as MP for Wakefield in 2005 Mary has been Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Transport since October 2013 and was Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment between 2010 and 2013. She forced the Government to abandon their plans to sell off England’s forests and held the Government to account during the horsemeat crisis. She leads Labour’s campaign on the impact of rising bus and rail fares on the cost of living. In Government, she served as a Whip in the Health Department in 2009/10 and as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Andy Burnham in the Department of Health, the Treasury and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Before Parliament, Mary taught entrepreneurship at Cranfield University’s School of Management where she worked with the founder of Moonpig.com and other fast growth SMEs. She also launched a new web-based modular MBA and helped redesign the MBA programme. Mary was a councillor in Islington 1998 – 2005 and Leader of the Labour Group 2000 - 2004. She spent four years in Brussels working for an international NGO.  Born in Coventry, she attended the local comprehensive school and has degrees from Oxford (Modern Languages) and the LSE (European Studies).

Professor David Begg, Chief Executive, Transport Times (Chair)

Professor David Begg is Chief Executive of Portobello Partnership which specialises in strategic advice to clients in the transport sector; publishes Transport Times magazine; and runs a series of transport best practice awards in conjunction with the Department for Transport, Transport Scotland and Transport for London. He is a non-executive board member of Heathrow Airport Holdings Ltd and a former board member of First Group plc.

From 1999 to 2005 he chaired the Government’s Commission for Integrated Transport which was set up to advise the Government on transport policy and to monitor performance. He was a board member of Transport for London from 2000 to 2006 before joining Tube Lines as chairman (2006-2010). He was a non-executive director of the Strategic Rail Authority and before that British Rail.

Before moving to London he was Professor of Transport Policy at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen. He is a visiting professor in Transport at Plymouth University. In the 1990s he was the political lead on transport on Lothian Region and then the City of Edinburgh councils.


Sir Howard Bernstein, Chief Executive, Manchester City Council

Sir Howard joined Manchester City Council as Junior Clerk in 1971, becoming Chief Executive in 1998. 

He has been Clerk to GMPTA/GMITA, (now TfGMC/Transport for Greater Manchester Committee) since the mid-1980's, where he has taken a leading role in introducing Metrolink, the first UK on-street public transport system, now significantly expanded and still expanding across the Greater Manchester conurbation.

He was Instrumental in the establishment, on 1 April 2011, of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, a new statutory body with powers to co-ordinate transport, economic development and regeneration and drive regional economic growth.  He continues to play a leading role within the CA.

He was involved in the establishment of Manchester Airport as a plc in the mid-1980’s and continues to play a lead role in its on-going expansion. 

Following the terrorist bombing of Manchester city centre in 1996, he became Chief Executive of Manchester Millennium Limited (1996 -1999), the public/private sector Task Force which was established to oversee the redesign and rebuilding of the area.

He was instrumental in securing Manchester as Host City for the XVII Commonwealth Games in 2002 and delivering what was then the largest multi-sport event ever hosted by the UK and the most successful games ever. 

External appointments include: member of the London 2012 Olympic Delivery Authority from 2006 to 2008; Chairman of Blackpool Urban Regeneration Company 2008-2010, Chair of the West End Commission which looked at the future of London’s West End.  He is currently Non-Executive Chair of Manchester Academic Health Science Centre and Deputy Chair of the HS2 Growth Task Force.  He has been awarded Honorary Degrees by UMIST, University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University. Sir Howard was knighted for his services to Manchester in 2003.


Alistair Gordon, Chief Executive, Keolis UK

Alistair Gordon is Chief Executive of Keolis UK. The company is one of the world’s leading transport operators and in the UK its main interests are in running four rail franchises Southern, South Eastern, London Midland and Transpennine Express as part of joint ventures.  Keolis has recently been successful in securing the new Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern franchise (TSGN) and the Docklands Light Railway franchise in London – both also as joint ventures.  Through its majority shareholder SNCF there is significant experience of high speed rail both in France via the French TGV and in the UK as joint operator of the High Speed 1 service.  Keolis is also the operator of the Nottingham Express Transit (NET) as part of the Nottingham Tramlink consortium.

Alistair is a graduate in Mathematics from University College London.  In 1990 he joined Jacobs as a transport consultant and in 1995 he moved to Steer Davies Gleave, as a consultant and where he was involved in the early stages of rail privatisation. This was followed in 1997 with a move to Eurostar where he worked for seven years in a range of roles including finance, branding, commercial and finally as Strategy Director.

In 2004 he joined Keolis UK as Project Director leading the company’s  UK bidding for Southeastern, London Rail and Southern.  Alistair was promoted in 2012 to CEO of Keolis UK


Steve Scrimshaw, Managing Director, Siemens Rail Systems UK

Steve Scrimshaw is Managing Director for Siemens Rail Systems in the UK – a division of Siemens that employs some 700 people nationwide and maintains over 350 passenger trains.

Steve began his career in the energy sector and worked for both Mitsui Babcock and Rolls-Royce Industrial Power Group, before joining Siemens 14 years ago.  He became Managing Director of the Rail Systems division in May 2007 and since that time has been deeply involved in a number of high profile rail-related contracts (including Thameslink and Eurostar). 

In total Siemens has around 13000 employees in the UK, 8,000 of whom are involved in manufacturing and engineering. The company’s extensive business activities support more than 54,000 jobs in the UK and generate around £1billion of UK exports.

Steve is also on the board of the National Skills Academy of Railway Engineering as well being a member of the Advisory Group for The University of Birmingham  - Centre for Railway Research & Education.