Mike joined the business in December 2018 in the newly created role of Chief Operating Officer heading up Rock Rail’s expanding asset management operations. Most recently he has taken up the role of Chief Originations Officer responsible for new rolling stock and rail infrastructure opportunities and fleet delivery across all markets.

With over 10 years of rail industry experience, Mike has a wealth of commercial, franchise bidding and asset delivery expertise.

Before joining Rock Mike was Franchise and Programmes Director and Deputy Managing Director for Abellio Greater Anglia leading the procurement and delivery of over 1000 new rolling stock vehicles, working closely with manufacturers to design, build and deliver modern high specification rolling stock for the passengers of Greater Anglia. Prior to this Mike was Abellio’s UK rail business development director and oversaw the successful expansion of Abellio, winning the ScotRail and Greater Anglia Franchises.

Mike’s previous roles have spanned a number of other infrastructure focussed industries across Europe and North America, including water and waste, working on the finance, structuring and development of large multidisciplinary infrastructure projects.

Steve joined Rock in November 2017 as Commercial Director. Steve has over twenty-five years of experience in the railway industry, with a career encompassing London Underground and UK heavy rail predominantly within the rolling stock arena.

Steve has worked for train operators, rolling stock manufacturers and government agencies as a manager, project manager, adviser and engineering lead, with roles encompassing a broad range of rolling stock and commercial engineering activity. Most recently, he was the Engineering Workstream lead for the development of the rolling stock bid proposition for recent Abellio and Stagecoach group franchise bids and for the procurement and delivery of new rolling stock for the Greater Anglia franchise as Joint Project Manager for the cl.720 Bombardier Aventra build. Steve has previously managed the delivery of new trains for South Eastern trains and the design development of Intercity Express trains on behalf of Hitachi and Great Western railways, alongside the delivery of TBTC signalling and CONNECT radio communications system upgrades across the London Underground network.

Steve brings extensive practical working knowledge and experience to forge collaborative working relationships with project and industry stakeholders necessary to successfully scope, specify and deliver major projects and enhancements into revenue earning service. At Rock, Steve will be primarily taking on the Lessor Representative role for the delivery of the new Bombardier Aventra trains for the South Western franchise.

Kishan is a Chartered Mechanical Engineer with over 7 years rail experience in various companies within the rail industry. He gained his Masters in Aeronautical Engineering at Queen Mary University of London. Kishan uses his background in operational rail to implement effective solutions to problems using his analytical and problem-solving skills. He can express a broad range of technical skills, personal effectiveness, leadership skills and use rigorous logic and methods to produce solutions to difficult problems.

He began working at Greater Anglia as a graduate engineer where he developed his proficiency through managing the operational engineering of legacy stocks. Kishan enabled GA to seamlessly introduce the new class 720 whilst cascading out the legacy fleet whilst maintaining operational capacity. This included risk assessments, producing relevant engineering changes and improvement of performance and reliability. His main role included delay attribution to determine root cause and financial liability using industry standard tools.

Kishan then took on the role of senior reliability consultant at Arup. He took on large scale projects including HS2 and Cross Rail. He facilitated workshops with clients, stakeholders and multidisciplined engineers where he ensured full management and delivery of projects while ensuring the development and management of strategic client relationships.

In September 2022, Kishan started at Rock Rail as a Fleet Manager. He brings great knowledge of old and new fleets and is responsible for the management of the key engineering tasks involved with introducing and maintaining new fleets. He oversees the day-to-day engineering, asset management and financial acumen of Rock’s current and future fleets.

Jake joined Rock in June 2022 after gaining over 8 years of experience in the commercial vehicle sector with a focus on electrification systems. Jake has a Masters in Mechanical Engineering bringing extensive knowledge of lithium-ion battery systems and will be primarily supporting Rock Road with a focus on battery and asset performance.

Jake previously worked at Cummins New Power Business unit, based in both the UK and US, leading the global marketing and sales function for battery development across high and low voltage lithium-ion batteries. Jake will use his expertise to lead on the asset management of our zero-emission bus fleets and track global trends in the supply chain to ensure that our assumptions are aligned with the development of bus and battery technology.

Sue started with Rock Rail as Commercial Manager in September 2020, having been consulting for the company since March 2020.  Sue is primarily managing the project to deliver the new Hitachi Intercity trains for the West Coast Partnership.

Sue is a Chartered Mechanical Engineer with a Masters degree in Transport and nearly 30 years in the railway industry.  Sue’s career has included working for London Underground and UK heavy rail in the rolling stock arena with a career covering project management, maintenance reviews, project engineering, testing of new trains and contract management.

Since starting her career at London Underground, Sue has worked for a ROSCO as Fleet Manager, overseeing maintenance changes, refranchising, refurbishments and managing heavy maintenance. Most recently Sue has been contracting and worked as the Rolling Stock Lead for the Operator of Last Resort and managed a project to develop the concept design for a go-anywhere locomotive. As a consultant she has also supported several franchise bids and worked for Greater Anglia franchise as Joint Project Manager for the Class 720 Bombardier Aventra build as well as Testing Manager for Rock Rail’s Stadler Class 755 and 745 fleets.

Matthew has over 18 years of experience of the infrastructure sector.

Since joining Rock in 2011, Matthew has played a leading role in the negotiation of the commercial aspects of all of Rock’s fleet.  He also played a lead role in the procurement and delivery of the Mersey Gateway Bridge PPP, which successfully opened in October 2017. In January 2020, Matthew started as Rock’s Head of Compliance and Risk to support the successful delivery of Rock’s fleets and later that year became Rock’s Chief Investment Officer.

Matthew has acted as a deal principal, financial advisor, a joint lead arranger and bookrunner and a legal advisor on infrastructure projects which gives him a unique perspective and insight into how to structure a project to bring it to a successful conclusion.

Matthew has specialized in PPP across all sectors from roads, parking and airports to the healthcare and education sectors, both in the UK, Europe and North America.

Prior to joining Rock, Matthew worked as a Vice President in the Royal Bank of Scotland’s infrastructure finance group (in New York) and was an Associate in DLA Piper’s commercial and projects team (in London).

George joined Rock in January 2019. His role as Director of Health, Safety and Cyber Security covers Rock Rail’s asset management activities and other business operations. George has responsibility for all aspects of Rock Rail’s Safety Management Systems including safety assurance responsibilities for all fleets under its management. He has 25 years of experience in the health and safety arena.

George was previously the Director of System Safety and Health at the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) where he was responsible for RSSB’s work to support the rail industry in all aspects of its health and safety management and assurance processes and capabilities. George also played a key role in the setting of the national rail health and safety strategy and in delivering associated programmes, including sponsoring the successful relaunch of the national supplier qualification scheme, RISQS.

Prior to his work at RSSB he worked as a consultant on safety assurance of complex safety critical systems, following previous roles in the railway supply sector designing rail systems.

George has a PhD in Computer Science, specialising in railway risk modelling and is a Chartered Engineer, and a Fellow of the Safety and Reliability Society. He is the Visiting Professor of Railway System Safety at the Institute of Rail Research, Huddersfield.

Jo joined the team in April 2018 with over 20 years of experience in the leasing industry most recently focussing on the rolling stock market. Jo is responsible for all financial aspects of Rock Rail’s asset management services and capabilities for its current and future asset management portfolio. Prior to joining Rock Jo headed up the Financial Control and Risk team at ROSCO Eversholt Rail group for three years. In this position she was responsible for finance activities on its portfolio of Passenger and Freight rolling stock assets, Cross London Trains and the onboarding of new shareholders following a private equity exit.

Joined Rock March 2022

Joined Rock March 2020