Colin Ord

Said the following about Stuart Broom:

“I would like to nominate Stuart Broom for the award of Rail Project Manager of the Year for his meteoric rise from Platform Assistant at Royston, to Infrastructure Project Manager overseeing blockades and major engineering works across the whole GTR estate.

It was mixture of luck and good judgement that Stuart batted down my door with a view to becoming a part of the GTR East Coast Upgrade project team when his apprenticeship in team leading saw him needing some experience in coal face project management.

Myself, and Benji Deane, Stuart’s line manager when he eventually joined the team, saw a great opportunity to leverage some frontline practical experience, whilst giving someone the opportunity to progress.

Stuart was given a single station to focus on, but very quickly his skills at being able to break down the key elements of the plan, work with local stakeholders such as customer groups, station and on-board colleagues and senior management meant that Stuart was soon getting involved in bigger and bigger plans.

Stuart continued to apply these skills, building relationships with senior leaders to inspire confidence in the plans he produced, and in other teams across the industry to ensure that plans were co-ordinated, realistic and worked for the people that needed to deliver them. Stuart continued to push his own comfort zone, taking the lead in industry level conferences and managing the passenger handling for whole blockades for the whole East Coast and Midland mainline.

Throughout all of this time, Stuart also took on the role of leading the introduction of PSVAR for Great Northern writing clear and concise processes and briefs for managers at all levels as well as front line colleagues on changes brought about by these important regulations. Moreover, Stuart fiercely championed the agenda for accessible travel both during disruptive events, and during blockades he managed, challenging the status quo and improving the provision for customers.

Stuart’s biggest challenge to date without a doubt came as the East Coast Upgrade started to wind down, the final blockades were the biggest and most complex, with Stuart leading the team on creating a multi-level plan for Finsbury Park, which involved dynamic planning for a number of different permutations, safety validation by both internal GTR colleagues but also Transport for London and the British Transport Police.

Stuart’s energy, professionalism and willingness to learn has earnt him a strong reputation in a very short space of time and as he moves on to share his skills across other projects and areas of the business I wish him the very best of luck and he is more than deserving of the title of Rail Project Manager of the year.“