Mark Hopwood CBE
Managing Director
Great Western Railway
Mark is the Managing Director of Great Western Railway.
Starting his career at Reading station in 1989 he worked for British Rail, Railtrack and several train operators including Thames Trains, First North Western, c2c, Silverlink, Gatwick Express and WAGN.
Appointed to the MD’s post at First Great Western in 2008, Mark initially had to work to restore punctuality and reliability which had fallen substantially prior to his arrival as well as addressing some serious financial challenges. He worked with government to build the case to add substantial carriages to the business to address capacity shortages.
He subsequently worked collaboratively with the DFT and Network Rail to develop the enhancements to support the introduction of new electric trains, the Crossrail project, substantial rebuilding of key stations including Reading. He steered the business through substantial change as the railway has seen delivery of these projects and substantial quantities of new rolling stock have been put in to use on GWR to benefit customers with existing rolling stock often retained and cascaded to support other parts of the business. This work culminated in the delivery the December 2019 timetable which added frequency and reduce journey times on most GW routes.
He was asked to step across to sister business, South Western Railway, in 2020 to address serious performance, partnership and contractual issues and returned to GWR in January 2021 having addressed the key SWR issues.
Mark has worked in UK Rail for over thirty years and has experience at the front line and in more strategic roles. He has chaired the UK rail industry National Task Force and sits on the Rail Delivery Group Planning & Production Board.
He was awarded a CBE in the 2021 New Years Honours List, is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport and a Fellow of Institute of Railway Operators. Mark holds other honorary posts within the heritage and mainline railway community.