PalletFORCE expands management team

PalletFORCE, one of the UK’s leading exponents of palletised distribution networks, has expanded its management team with two new appointments, in readiness for its move to a new state of the art hub at Burton on Trent, Staffordshire. Giles Conway joins as General Manager Finance and Dave Gough has been brought in as Health and Safety Manager. The former is a new role, the first of several more to be confirmed in the next few months.

Conway joins from a European finance role at DVD supplier, Technicolor Distribution and has previously worked for the sameday service division of Business Post. Gough has moved to PalletFORCE from a health and safety role at one of its main competitors.

PalletFORCE, launched in 2001 as one of the UK’s earliest pioneers of palletised distribution networks has made the appointments ahead of opening its £30 million new hub development, scheduled to go live in January 2009 and planned to the company’s own specification as the new flagship for the palletised distribution sector. Commenting on his appointment. Giles Conway explained: “This is a new role which combines an internal accounting task with a more outward facing function providing management and billing information to the 97 PalletFORCE member depots across the UK and Europe. It’s all about ensuring that a progressive, fast-growing business like PalletFORCE has the most sophisticated financial data systems available today.”

Dave Gough added, ”The role encompasses training for health and safety in a fast moving environment, including seeing through the latest OHSAS 18001 standards within 12 months. Given that the new site will be the largest and most advanced in the industry, this is a fantastic opportunity.”

Overlooking the A38, one of the country’s major road transport distribution arteries, the new 379,400 square foot PalletFORCE hub with its ‘single warehouse’ concept has been designed to deliver a bespoke environment offering faster throughputs, a quicker turnaround of vehicles and a higher quality of operation. It will be able to handle more than four million pallets per annum. Commenting on the latest appointments, Chief Executive Officer, Michael Conroy said, “We are now in the run up to the opening of the new hub and Giles and Dave are part of our strategy to gear up our operations as we enter this new era. The company has grown very rapidly in its seven years of operation and its tremendous success is due the commitment of a hardworking, high quality team in an organisation owned by its members with everyone taking equal interest and responsibility for the growth of the business.”

www.palletforce.com