Interview
DYAN PERRY has just stepped down as Chief Executive Officer of HS1, but she won’t be quitting the industry altogether. She talks to NICK BRODRICK about the challenges facing Britain’s railway - including skills gaps, shifting more travel to trains, and the future of high speed
Dyan Perry’s rail career began as a Station Manager at Peckham Rye, in south London. Soon, she will be stepping back from the industry as the Chief Executive Officer of High Speed 1 Ltd.
In the intervening years, Perry (nee Crowther) has served across all major facets of the rail sector - including becoming the first woman managing director of a train operating company and managing director of Network Rail’s largest route.
Her achievements were first recognised with an OBE in the Queen’s Jubilee honours list. Then, in September, she received an Outstanding Personal Contribution (senior management) award at RAIL’s 2023 National Rail Awards.
“For someone who was brought up on a council estate, whose dad worked in a factory, to be recognised like that is very humbling,” she reflects.
“You do get a bit of imposter syndrome and think ‘gosh, is that what people really think of me?’
“I look around the industry at great people like Robin Gisby, Sir John Armitt, Iain Coucher, Mary Grant, and it’s just great that you’re recognised as being part of that peer group.
“Sometimes you don’t appreciate what a privilege it’s been to work in the industry for so many years and know so much about it, because the industry has given me so much.”
Perry recalls two press headlines from her career to describe the highpoints.
The first was from 2002, when she moved to York to become the successful commercial and managing director of Arriva Trains Northern, which had previously been ranked as the UK’s worst performing operator.
The headline read: ‘Dyan takes on the job that few would want.’
“It was a bit like saying ‘they couldn’t get anyone else they wanted, so they got Dyan!’ she reflects with good humour, two decades later.
“The business was on its knees, it couldn’t get any worse, so anything I did was only going to make it better. It was great to have a blank canvas. I rolled my sleeves up and it was back to basics.”
The second headline highlight was in RAIL, which branded Perry’s move to become chief operations officer at Govia Thameslink Railway as: ‘The significance of Dyan Crowther.’
