"Our goal at Network Rail is to develop world class leaders who can take the rail industry forward. It was clear to us that WMG at the University of Warwick could offer us world class standards in leadership backed by the fantastic academic standards at the University."

Iain Coucher, former Chief Executive, Network Rail

 

A programme devised to overhaul the ethos of the company which owns and maintains track, bridges, signal boxes and stations, is already paying dividends after just one year.

With WMG’s help Network Rail acquired and remodelled the former Cable and Wireless building at Westwood to become its Leadership Centre. Since then, staff from all levels have joined the programme run by WMG and the Warwick Business School.

Mark Pickering, WMG’s Director of Development, says: “Network Rail had identified the competencies they felt they needed and one area was that of getting people to take more responsibility.

"They came to us and working together we identified what their business need was and looked at how we could tackle it. We designed a leadership programme which they loved and adopted. We took all that was already good in the business and worked together to improve the set-up. As well as developing the company we develop the people by giving them this chance for accreditation. It is proving very successful and is one that will run and run.”

BAE Systems is another company to have benefited from one of WMG’s bespoke industrial programmes. Thanks to better training in the area of procurement the aerospace company has saved around £35 milllion over the course of the eight-year partnership.