MER speaks to Garrett Bridgeman, Managing Director of Mails and Parcels of Irish national postal service An Post who has been involved with the company since the age of 16. Garrett explains how An Post has changed over the last 20 years and what it is doing to stay relevant in the midst of transformation.

This article is an extract from the Summer Edition of MER Magazine published in May 2019. You can read the full article as well as other articles from MER for free by visiting digital.mailandexpressreview.com.

How and why did you get into the sector?

My father worked at An Post for over 40 years. So you could say it’s in my DNA. I worked summers at An Post from the age of 16 and had the opportunity to spend some time working in our mail centres and at the General Post Office in Dublin, which is An Post’s headquarters.

How did your career progress?

I started full time at An Post as a marketing graduate aged 22. That year I was the Graduate of the Year in Ireland and An Post sponsored the award. They asked if I’d be interested in joining their new graduate programme. So after a formal interview I was delighted to start on the Graduate Programme.

I spent eight years working in Marketing at An Post. This led to working in a number of strategic roles in various parts of the business for three years, before moving into Operations where I worked for nine years. In 2016, I took up the challenge of driving forward our struggling parcel business, overhauling the service, making it fit for purpose and re-introducing it to the market both in Ireland and globally. This was one of the most exciting times of change in my career, and it served as a spring-board to my next role. One year later, in 2017, I took on my current role as Managing Director of An Post Mails and Parcels.

Can you describe what An Post was like when you started your career?

20 years ago, our business was a thriving mails business. It was a time before email and Facebook so mail was the only channel through which businesses and consumers could correspond with each other in writing. There was no online shopping, so our parcel business was less significant in terms of volume and growth.

How has it changed?

When you put it all into perspective it is incredible how rapidly everything has changed in our business. They say necessity is the mother of invention, and never a truer word could be said about our industry. The pace of change has been accelerated by a number of factors; digital ubiquity, the Irish recession in 2008; and the rapid rise of online shopping are in my view the most significant…

This article is an extract from the Spring Edition of MER Magazine published in February 2019. You can read the full article as well as other articles from MER for free by visiting digital.mailandexpressreview.com.

An Post are the host proud sponsor of the World Mail & Express (WMX) Europe Conference 2019. WMX Europe is taking place at Croke Park in Dublin, Ireland (17 – 19 June 2019). Visit www.wmxeurope.com for more information.