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Adam Crozier

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Adam Crozier
Adam Crozier speaking at the Nations & Regions Media Conference in 2012
Born (1964-01-26) 26 January 1964 (age 60)
Isle of Bute, Scotland
EducationGraeme High School
Alma materHeriot-Watt University
OccupationBusinessman
Years active1984–present
TitleCEO of Saatchi & Saatchi (1995–99)
CEO of The FA (2000–02)
CEO of Royal Mail (2003–10)
CEO of ITV (2010–17)
Chairman of Whitbread (2018–present)
Chairman of BT Group (2021–present)
SpouseAnnette Crozier
Children2

Adam Alexander Crozier (born 26 January 1964)[1] is a Scottish businessman who was formerly the chief executive officer of media company ITV plc,[2] operator of the ITV television network covering most of the United Kingdom.

After a career at Saatchi & Saatchi culminating in the post of joint chief executive in 1995, he came to wide public prominence as the new chief executive of The Football Association in 2000 at the age of 35, before in 2003 becoming the chief executive of the Royal Mail Group, the United Kingdom's mail delivery service, where he oversaw a controversial modernisation and redundancy programme. Whilst former Post Office Ltd CEO Paula Vennells has faced much of the wrath for the British Post Office scandal, it was under Crozier's leadership that much of the Horizon computing systems errors and prosecution of innocent sub-post masters occurred.

In January 2010 he was announced as the new chief executive of ITV plc, where he arrived on 26 April 2010. Crozier announced he was leaving this post in June 2017.[3]

Crozier became the chairman of BT Group plc on 1 December 2021.[4]

Early life and education

[edit]

Crozier was born and raised on the Isle of Bute on the west coast of Scotland in 1964.[5][6] His father was a manager for Lord Bute, and his mother was secretary to the managing director of The Scotsman. Crozier went to a school in Ayr, before moving to Graeme High School, a comprehensive school in Falkirk.[5] He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree (BA) in business organisation from Edinburgh's Heriot-Watt University.[5] While at school, Crozier had trials with both Hibernian and Stirling Albion football clubs.[5]

Crozier received an honorary doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 2005.[7]

Career

[edit]

Early career

[edit]

Crozier joined Pedigree Petfoods as a graduate trainee in 1984. In 1986, he moved to The Daily Telegraph to work in media sales.[5]

Saatchi & Saatchi

[edit]

From 1988 to 1999 Crozier worked for advertising agency Saatchi and Saatchi, becoming media director in 1990, and then being appointed as joint chief executive from 1995 alongside Tamara Ingram.[5][8] This occurred in the wake of the departure of the founding Saatchi brothers to form M&C Saatchi.[5]

The Football Association

[edit]

Crozier came to public attention as the surprise appointment to the role of chief executive of The Football Association, the governing body of England's national game, football, aged just 35 and having had no experience of business in football.[9] He replaced Graham Kelly. In his short tenure from 2000 to 2002, the FA relocated headquarters from Lancaster Gate to Soho Square, appointed the first ever foreign England national team manager, Swede Sven-Göran Eriksson, and became a more commercial organisation, maximising its revenues. He also reduced the average age of the FA's staff from 55 to 32, progressed the Wembley Stadium redevelopment, and reduced the FA's ruling body from a 91-member FA Board to a committee of 12.[5][9] His moves were not without criticism, with complaints from some about lack of consultation and of acting beyond his powers.[9] He was replaced by Mark Palios.

While at the FA, Crozier reportedly identified some members of the England national team as the Golden Generation.[10] It was a term later criticised towards the end of the decade by some England players as having been undeserved, and of causing undue expectations and pressure due to the fact they had at the time, and in years since, failed to win major tournaments.[10][11]

Royal Mail

[edit]

Crozier became the chief executive of the Royal Mail Group in February 2003.[8][12] Entering the post, Crozier described his remit as the "biggest corporate turnaround programme in the UK".[9] Crozier initiated a programme of modernisation and reform, to deal with changes in the service brought about by reforms beginning with the Postal Services Act 2000.[12]

In Crozier's first three years, the Royal Mail division produced record annual profits of £537m in May 2005, making £2m a day in profits, up from £1.5m a day losses before he joined.[13] The Group overall had been transformed from recording losses of £1.1bn at the start of the turnaround plan in 2002 into a profit of £355m in 2005.[5] Royal Mail chairman Allan Leighton said it was a "fantastic turnaround" but also that there was still "a huge amount to do".[13] The newly formed mail regulator Postwatch were however critical that it had failed to achieve 11 of its 15 licence targets during the previous financial year.[12] As the postal service was opened up to competition in early 2006, Royal Mail recorded losses of £10m in 2006 and £279m in 2007.[13]

His reforms included highly controversial large scale post office closures in the thousands, layoffs of Royal Mail staff, changes in working practices, and the ending of the second daily delivery and moving the first daily delivery to later in the day.[5][13][14][15] While at the Royal Mail, Crozier's salary, one of the largest in the country for the head of a publicly owned body, was criticised in light of the changes being made to the Royal Mail workforce.[13][14][15] Ongoing reforms eventually led to large scale industrial disputes and strike action in both 2007 and 2009 onwards.

Crozier was CEO of Royal Mail at a crucial period in the Post Office scandal when the Post Office was still part of Royal Mail, in which hundreds of sub-postmasters were falsely accused of, and prosecuted for, theft or false accounting. Prosecutions were conducted based on revenue shortfalls identified by the Post Office's Horizon computer system. These were erroneous and the result of bugs and errors in the system.[16] Post Office officials knew about the bugs as early as 2002, but chose to continue with the prosecutions regardless.[17][18]

In May 2024, the Financial Times reported that Crozier had received letters from at least four Members of Parliament about problems with the Horizon system, and their consequences for sub-postmasters, while he was at the Royal Mail. This was despite Crozier having testified under oath at the on-going Post Office Inquiry that he "was not aware of the tragic situation for Post Office sub-postmasters and their families during my time at Royal Mail."[19]

ITV

[edit]

Crozier left the Royal Mail in 2010 to become the chief executive of media group ITV plc.[20][21]

ITV plc is one of three partners within ITV Network Limited, the not-for-profit organisation which runs the ITV television network, the United Kingdom's first commercial network effectively created under the Television Act 1954. Crozier was replacing Michael Grade, who announced his intention to leave in April 2009.[21] Crozier was given the task of increasing ITV's advertising revenues which had fallen with the proliferation of new channels in the British television market.[21] On announcing the appointment, ITV chairman Archie Norman said of Crozier that he is a "very strong leader with a great track record in delivering transformational change".[21]

In ITV's 2023-4 docu-drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office, ITV failed to make mention of the role of Crozier in the unfolding seven years of the British Post Office scandal, prior to the reins being handed over in 2010 to his successor CEO Paula Vennells.[22] At the time Crozier was Royal Mail CEO, the Post Office was, in effect, a division thereof.[22][23]

Other roles

[edit]

Crozier was also a board member of Camelot Group, the former operator of the UK National Lottery, and the Debenhams retail chain, before it was liquidated.[8] He is also member of the President's Committee of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).[8] He joined the board of Whitbread in 2017, becoming a senior independent director that year. In 2018 he succeeded the retiring Richard Baker as Whitbread's chairman.[24]

Crozier was the chairman of Vue Cinemas from 2017 to 2020,[25] and the chair of ASOS plc from 2018 to 2021.[26]

In February 2020 Crozier was appointed non-executive chairman of Kantar Group.[27] In December 2021, he became chairman of BT, replacing Jan du Plessis.[28]

Personal life

[edit]

Crozier is married to Annette, whom he met while working for Saatchi and Saatchi, and has two children.[5] Despite having taken on high-profile jobs involving pressing through major upheavals, he is described as "softly spoken" and has previously said of the spotlight, "I hate it, absolutely hate it. The bizarre thing about the last three jobs I've done is that I don't like [the public profile] at all. I will go to enormous lengths not to do public things – because it is just not me."[5]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Stevenson, Jonathan (19 December 2002). "Moderniser who fell out with the dinosaurs". BBC News.
  2. ^ "Adam Crozier: Executive Profile & Biography – Businessweek". investing.businessweek.com. Retrieved 30 October 2012.[dead link]
  3. ^ Kollewe, Julia (3 May 2017). "ITV chief executive Adam Crozier steps down after seven years". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 May 2017.
  4. ^ "Adam Crozier appointed as Chairman of BT". Adam Crozier appointed as Chairman of BT. Retrieved 18 August 2021.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Sharp suit with an iron hand in a woolly glove The Guardian, 11 May 2007]
  6. ^ "Rothesay (Town of the Week)". Sunday Mail. 12 November 2000. Retrieved 10 December 2006.
  7. ^ "Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh & Scottish Borders: Annual Review 2004". www1.hw.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 13 April 2016. Retrieved 30 March 2016.
  8. ^ a b c d "Profile: Adam Crozier". Royal Mail. Retrieved 28 January 2010.[permanent dead link]
  9. ^ a b c d "Profile: Adam Crozier". BBC News. 17 September 2003. Retrieved 28 January 2010.
  10. ^ a b "World Cup 2010: Gary Neville at odds with England's 'golden generation' tag". The Daily Telegraph. 13 June 2010. Archived from the original on 14 June 2010. Retrieved 10 August 2013.
  11. ^ Mark Fleming (13 October 2009). "'Golden generation' tag annoys Lampard". The Independent. London. Retrieved 2 July 2010.
  12. ^ a b c "BBC NEWS – Business – Royal Mail Delivers Record Profit". BBC News. 17 May 2005. Retrieved 23 May 2008.
  13. ^ a b c d e . "BBC NEWS – Business – Mail Boss gets £3m in Pay Packet". BBC News. 23 May 2008. Archived from the original on 26 May 2008. Retrieved 23 May 2008.
  14. ^ a b Royal Mail strikes: Adam Crozier second highest paid public sector boss on £1m The Daily Telegraph, 2 November 2009
  15. ^ a b Richard Alleyne and Gordon Rayner (19 April 2008). "Royal Mail rewarding Adam Crozier's 'failure'- Telegraph". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 4 May 2008. Retrieved 23 May 2008.
  16. ^ "BBC - Post Office scandal: What the Horizon saga is all about". BBC News. 22 July 2021.
  17. ^ "Justice Lost in the Post - Private Eye" (PDF). Private Eye.
  18. ^ Marlow, Ben. "It's high time Adam Crozier accounted for his role in the Post Office scandal". telegraph.co.uk. UK: Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 8 January 2024. Retrieved 8 January 2024.
  19. ^ "FT - Crozier's claim he was unaware of Post Office scandal undermined by letters". Financial Times. 17 May 2024.
  20. ^ Adam Crozier to leave Royal Mail later this year to join ITV Archived 15 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine Royal Mail Group, 28 January 2010
  21. ^ a b c d "ITV appoints Adam Crozier as new boss". BBC News. 28 January 2010. Archived from the original on 29 January 2010. Retrieved 28 January 2010.
  22. ^ a b Marlow, Ben (5 January 2024). "It's high time Adam Crozier accounted for his role in the Post Office scandal". The Telegraph. Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  23. ^ Ledwith, Mario; Witherow, Tom; Mansfield, Oli (9 January 2024). "Who is responsible for the Post Office scandal?". The Times. Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  24. ^ "Whitbread PLC announces retirement of Richard Baker as Chairman and appointment of Adam Crozier" (Press release). Whitbread. 4 January 2018. Retrieved 15 May 2020.
  25. ^ "Press releases - Vue International".
  26. ^ "ASOS_AR2021" (PDF). Retrieved 2 February 2023.
  27. ^ Howcroft, Elizabeth (20 February 2020). Donovan, Kirsten (ed.). "Kantar appoints ex-ITV chief Adam Crozier as chairman". Reuters. Archived from the original on 12 February 2020.
  28. ^ Sweney, Mark (17 August 2021). "Former ITV chief Adam Crozier to take over as BT chairman". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 September 2021.
Business positions
Preceded by
Charles Scott
 CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi
1995–99
With: Tamara Ingram 		Succeeded by
Preceded by CEO of The Football Association
2000–02 		Succeeded by
Preceded by
John Roberts
 CEO of Royal Mail
2003–10 		Succeeded by
Preceded by CEO of ITV
2010–17 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Chairman of Whitbread
2018–present 		Incumbent
Preceded by Chairman of BT Group
2021–present 		Incumbent
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