The board of An Post has appointed Donal Connell, an executive with wide experience in the IT sector, as its new chief executive.
Mr Connell (53) takes up his position on July 14th and replaces Donal Curtin, who was responsible for turning around the company's financial fortunes over the past three years. It has been suggested that Mr Connell was not the first choice for the position, but yesterday An Post chairwoman Margaret McGinley said she was satisfied with the selection process and that Mr Connell brought "a strong track record of achievement" to the role.
Mr Curtin announced his decision to depart on January 26th, and since the an An Post selection committee has been attempting to find his successor. No internal candidates were successful.
Mr Connell leaves a position as general manager of Maxtor Ireland, a leading supplier of hard disk drive storage products. The Irish subsidiary employed 111 people at the end of 2004, although in the past year it outsourced some of its operations to Budapest. Mr Connell was responsible for a range of corporate functions, including customer service, logistics and order fulfilment. In its accounts to the end of 2004, the company had a pretax profit of €577,132.
Prior to Maxtor, Mr Connell worked with IT firm 3Com, where he was vice-president of worldwide supply chain operations. A qualified engineer, he started his career as a civil servant at the former department of posts and telegraphs.
He is currently a director of Xilinx Europe and chairman of Blanchardstown Institute of Technology. "This is a very exciting time in the history of An Post, and I am looking forward to working with the entire team in An Post to meet our objectives," he said.
The main union at An Post, the Communications Workers' Union, did not extend a welcome to Mr Connell, however. It instead said comments earlier this week by Mr Curtin, that absenteeism rose sharply during World Cup matches, should be immediately withdrawn.
"If the board and its new CEO want to start on a new footing with the 10,000 staff in the company, today is the ideal day to set the record straight. Mr Curtin was always part of the problem; the new CEO and the board should be part of the solution as to the best future for An Post," it said in a statement.
Mr Connell faces many challenges in his new role, particularly to grow the company's revenue, which has been relatively static over the past two years.
He will also be charged with implementing the banking joint venture between An Post and Belgian financial services group Fortis. The number of postal items per head of the population delivered by An Post is falling and the company is keen to find new revenue streams.
