Meet the team

Tom Joyner - Managing Director

Tom joined CrossCountry as Managing Director in June 2019 from Arriva UK Trains Division, where he was involved in developing our Customer Strategy and providing leadership in several key operational areas.
Starting his railway career at the age of eighteen for British Rail in 1993 as traincrew, Tom worked his way successfully through various operational and customer facing supervisory and managerial roles. His first executive role was leading Silverlink Metro, and then moved on to director roles at First Great Western and First Capital Connect before joining Network Rail as their Future Operations specialist. Tom was then asked to turn around London Midland through significant operational difficulties before joining Arriva as Managing Director at Arriva Trains Wales, leading the team there, and then ultimately overseeing the successful end of the franchise, including the demobilisation of what was Arriva’s first contract in the UK rail market.

Mark Goodall – Service Delivery Director

Mark has 21 years in the railway having worked for Network Rail in various positions including Station Manager of Birmingham New Street Station and in freight. Mark also worked as General Manager for West Midlands Trains and later as Head of Alliancing. Before Joining CrossCountry, Mark was Operations Director of Chiltern Railways where he and his team won silver at the Operating Team of the Year for the Modern Railways awards. He has a degree in Management, a Masters in Business Administration and a Masters in Employment Law and Industrial Relations.

Wendy Smith - HR Director

Wendy joins from HS2, where she was Head of HR, responsible for developing the future capability of the organisation. Prior to that, she has held numerous senior HR positions in a variety of industries including construction, manufacturing, media and logistics, and has significant experience of unionised environments and business transformation. Wendy brings a wealth of experience to CrossCountry, including a strong interest in employee engagement and developing individuals and a proven track record of supporting businesses to improve business growth and performance

Colette Casey - Customer Director

Following an extensive career within the automotive sector, Colette joined CrossCountry in the newly created position of Customer Director in September 2021. During the last 20 years, Colette has held several commercial roles with large automotive organisation's including MG Rover and General Motors working across various brands including Vauxhall, Chevrolet and Saab, in Sales, Marketing Communications, Digital Management and more recently as Head of Quality and Customer Experience at Groupe Renault, where she had responsibility for defining and implementing standards, processes and training across the dealer network. Colette along with her team remain committed to providing solutions, which ensure that all our customers receive a great CrossCountry experience every day.

Gillian Ingham - Finance Director

Gillian leads CrossCountry’s Finance team, taking care of the business’s financial health, medium and long-term growth strategy and reporting. Gillian joined us from Arriva TrainCare where she was the Finance and Commercial Director and Deputy MD.
Gillian, who is a qualified engineer, retrained in finance 15 years ago and has been with Arriva for 9 years. Over the last 5 years, Gillian has played a significant role in the strategic and operational successes at Arriva TrainCare, transforming the company from a marginal business to a successful multi-site operation with significant revenue, customer engagement, commercial focus and profit growth.

Sally Gillespie - Head of Corporate Affairs

In November 2019, Sally joined us from Chiltern Railways. Sally has significant experience in external and internal communications and in recent years, she has completed an MBA specialising in international business and marketing. Sally also has significant agency experience having worked for a large London-based communications consultancy for six years prior to joining the rail sector. Here she worked in corporate communications for numerous international businesses including HSBC and Unilever.
As Head of Corporate Affairs at CrossCountry, Sally is responsible for the development and delivery of the corporate affairs strategy to support the business' wider business objectives. She oversees all communications activity as well as the approach with stakeholders and the Department for Transport.

Jo Davey - Industry Projects and Planning Director

Jo joined Crosscountry in October 2017 and has held several positions within the senior management team around Planning since then, steering the Planning team throughout the challenging pandemic period and numerous unforeseen timetable changes. In June 2022 she took up the position of Industry Projects & Planning Director and is responsible for Planning, Business Improvement, Risk & Compliance activities and all Timetable related Projects & development. Jo has worked in rail since 2004 at several different TOCs including GWR and Greater Anglia. A specialist in Planning and Access, her priority is a stable and high quality timetable alongside robust business processes to manage our extensive network and obligations.

Regional Directors

John Robson -  West Midlands & North West

John brings nearly 30 years’ rail experience, having held numerous operational roles for West Midlands Trains and Virgin Trains as well as delivering successful projects in rail consultancies.
With full responsibility for the operational and financial performance of the West Midlands and North West region, John will be able to provide strategic direction to support the business’ growth.

Richard Morris - East Midlands & East Anglia

Richard is a Chartered Mechanical Engineer with 17 years’ experience in traction and rolling stock engineering. Richard has been managing engineering teams for a number of years and took up the role of Service Delivery Director in October 2019.

During his time at CrossCountry, Richard has delivered strong fleet performance and safety for our fleets and has been responsible for delivering a number of challenging franchise commitments, including bringing our 40 year old HST Fleet up to modern accessibility standards, introducing free Wi-Fi service on all fleets and fitment of the autosander system on the Voyager fleet (the latter project winning the 2018 Rail Business Award for Technical Innovation Excellence).

Ben Simkin – North East & Scotland

Ben has a wealth of experience both from a commercial perspective, having held the position of Commercial Director, but also operationally, in his role as Regional Customer Service Manager for the East Midlands and East Anglia.

Huw Margetts – West & Wales

Huw has almost ten years’ railway experience, having joined the sector as a graduate at Network Rail. He has held numerous operational roles including Head of Performance and most recently Head of On-Train Service at South Western Railway while his knowledge of managing operational colleagues and the importance of developing strong stakeholder relationships will be invaluable in his new role at CrossCountry.