TfL poaches Eurostar marketing director for top role

Transport for London (TfL) has hired Gabriella Neudecker as its new director of customer and revenue, replacing marketing veteran Chris Macleod following his retirement earlier this year.

Neudecker is currently marketing director at Eurostar, where she has been responsible for a range of commercial, brand and customer functions since November 2019.

Before that, she held the head of marketing position at consumer credit company Experian for two and a half years, served at the Post Office for eight years, culminating in the role of head of marketing and digital. She has also worked at a range of creative agencies, including Bright Blue Day, RAPP and Clark Mackay Walpole (now Stack).

On joining TfL in October, Neudecker will pick up responsibility for the public transport company’s own marketing and communications, as well as its vast advertising estate across its network of trains, tubes, buses and bikes.

She joins at an uncertain time for the business, as a year of Covid-19 lockdowns has led to fundamental shifts in the way travellers live and work in the capital. With flexible working now increasingly popular, commuter numbers look unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels.

However, Neudecker says she is “delighted” to join TfL, adding: “It is an exciting opportunity and the importance of marketing and communications has never been greater.

“As London continues to recover from this pandemic, it is vital that the city’s iconic public transport network successfully welcomes customers back in a safe, clean and accessible way.”

TfL’s retiring marketing boss on why his job was about ‘much more’ than communications

Chris Macleod retired from the position earlier this summer in order to pursue other interests and expand his portfolio of advisory and non-executive positions. He had played a leading role in TfL’s marketing activity for almost 15 years, joining in 2007 as head of marketing communications.

During his tenure Macleod paved the way for TfL to become a more customer-oriented business, leading its digital transformation and launching the company’s ‘Every Journey Matters’ positioning.

Speaking to Marketing Week earlier this year, Macleod suggested one of the first opportunities for his successor could be in developing a new campaign to start rebuilding passenger numbers.

“We’ve got a big part to play in the economy of London and we need to get back to our purpose of helping to keep London working and growing,” he said.

Asked what advice he would give the next TfL marketing boss, Macleod added: “Continue to be customer focused. Be insight led. Look at the data. And keep moving, keep changing and keep looking at things.

“We can’t naturally accept that it’s all going to be the same as before, which might mean we have to flex the business in all sorts of ways. That’ll be the exciting opportunity.”

Neudecker is the second Eurostar marketer to jump ship this summer. In June, the transport company’s director of brand and customer experience, Amber Kirby, joined Channel 4 as its new marketing director, operating under the leadership of CMO Zaid Al-Qassab.