HomeEventsRailStaff Awards 2022 - Meet the independent panel judges

RailStaff Awards 2022 – Meet the independent panel judges

Listen to this article

Rail Media is delighted to announce the independent panel judges of the 2022 RailStaff Awards, which takes place on Thursday 24 November at the NEC, Birmingham.

The RailStaff Awards have been recognising the extraordinary achievements of rail industry employees since 2007. The ceremony shows appreciation for the people who deliver the railway – from drivers to cleaners, and engineers to station staff. Often these are stories of lives saved, careers turned around and adversity conquered.

Meet our industry leading independent panel:


Adeline Ginn MBE

Adeline Ginn is marketing, legal and EDI director at Egis Transport Solutions, a multi-disciplinary project management and consultancy business, and part of the French engineering and construction Group, Egis.

Prior to joining Egis, Adeline spent 20 years at Angel Trains, one of Britain’s leading rolling stock companies, acting as sole legal counsel of their European business for 7 years and then as General Counsel. In April 2012, Adeline created Women in Rail, which aims to improve gender balance, diversity and inclusion across all grades and roles within the UK railway sector.

Dr Jenny Illingsworth

Jenny Illingsworth is head of business operations at Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education (BCRRE­­) at University of Birmingham.

Jenny manages the day-to-day running of the Centre, which includes looking after its 150+ academics, professional services staff, research students, and associates. Her work includes oversight of the Centre’s business, including marketing, communications, strategy development and programme development.

Dyan Crowther OBE

Chief executive officer of High Speed 1, Dyan Crowther has over 30 years’ experience in the rail industry. Prior to joining HS1, Dyan was the chief operating officer at Govia Thameslink Railway. She has worked in several senior director roles at Network Rail including route managing director of the West Coast Main Line and director of operations.

Dyan has extensive experience in the boardroom having sat on the board of an NHS Trust for five years, been a trustee for the Railway Children registered charity, and been a member of the British Transport Police Authority and the Advisory Panel to Crossrail.

Fiona Westcough

Fiona Westcough is the chair of the Young Rail Professionals (YRP) and joined the rail industry in 2019 as a Graduate Engineer at Atkins (member of the SNC-Lavalin Group). In her time as a graduate, she supported two major clients on secondment – Bombardier (Alstom) and Transport for London. She now resides in Atkins’ Strategic Rail Market team.

Fiona has been heavily involved in YRP since April 2020. On top of this, she is an associate of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) and is working towards Chartership. She is passionate about inspiring the next generation of engineers.

Martin Tugwell

As chief executive of Transport for the North, Martin Tugwell is responsible for transforming pan-Northern connectivity in order to improve productivity and drive economic growth. He leads Transport for the North as England’s first sub-national transport body, giving the North a strong, unified, and determined voice on transport investment to benefit the region.

Martin has more than 20 years of experience in strategic transport and infrastructure planning at national, regional, and local levels.

Matt Atkins

RailStaff Editor Matt Atkins, has worked in journalism and publishing for over 15 years. In that time, he’s worked, edited and written for numerous trade publications covering industries as diverse as finance, business, recruitment, maritime shipping, and now rail.

Matt joined Rail Media from the academic publisher, Taylor & Francis, where he edited leading journals covering the humanities, science and technology, and medicine.

Neil Robertson

Neil is CEO of the National Skills Academy for Rail (NSAR) which he joined in 2015 from the utility sector where he was CEO of the Energy & Utility Skills Group. Before that he was CEO of the British Institute of Innkeeping.

Prior to these sectoral CEO roles, he held senior positions in government departments for education and business where he had responsibilities in skills, employability, English and migration, regional economic development and European Structural Funds.

Peter White

Peter is a Service Delivery Assistant for GWR at Bristol Temple Meads and was voted Rail Person of the Year at the RailStaff Awards 2019.Peter entered the rail industry via a Princes Trust scheme with GWR, and grabbed the opportunity with both hands, joing the company as a Ticket Examiner.

Peter is passionate that other young people benefit from similar opportunities and helped run future GWR “Get Into” courses. He is currently a dispatcher and is awaiting a start date to become a trainee train driver.

Tim Hedley-Jones

Tim Hedley-Jones is executive director of the Railway Heritage Trust, a role he started on 1 April 2022. Prior to that he worked for Transport for the North on the Transpennine Route Upgrade Programme.

Between 1999 and 2018 Tim worked for the East Coast franchise in a number of customer service, programme delivery, and business development roles, latterly as major projects director.

He was involved in the development of the Intercity Express Train, the redevelopment of King’s Cross Station, and built a new station at Wakefield Westgate.

Recommended