Who's who
Find out who we are here
Our board
The Railways Act 2005 abolished the regional Rail Passengers Committees and the former national Rail Passengers Council and a new organisation was created to represent the views of all rail passengers across Great Britain.
Passenger Focus is structured as an executive non-departmental public body, sponsored by the Department for Transport, with up to 14 board members. The Scottish Executive, Welsh Assembly Government and the Greater London Authority are each able to appoint a member to the board. The remaining appointments are made by the Secretary of State for Transport. Recruitment to the Board is on an open recruitment basis, and appointments are based on a mix of skills, knowledge and competencies plus geographic spread across Great Britain. Appointments are regulated by The Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments.
Board members
Colin Foxall CBE is chairman of Passenger Focus and is also a non-executive director of Radian Asset Assurance Ltd and a member of the British Transport Police Authority. Colin also chairs Passenger Focus's Statistics Governance Group.
David Burton was managing director of West Anglia Great Northern Railway from 1996-1999.
Christine Knights was chair of the Rail Passengers Committee for North East England. She is a member of the British Transport Police Authority and is experienced in the development of consumer organisations and consumer policy in Europe and the UK.
Dr Derek Langslow CBE was chairman of the Rail Passengers Committee for Eastern England and was previously chief executive of English Nature. He holds a number of non-executive roles including Chair of the East of England Tourist Board and is a trustee of the Natural History Museum.
David Leibling chairs the Fares and Ticketing Committee of London TravelWatch and is a member of its Executive Group, its Casework Committee and the Luton Airport Transport Forum. He is London TravelWatch’s Lead Member for Barnet, Harrow and Hillingdon Borough Liaison. He was formerly the Director of Communications for Lex, the motoring group, and was a non-Executive Director of the Driving Standards Agency for eight years. David is also a member of Public Policy Committee, RAC Foundation for Motoring and editor of its Motoring towards 2050 series of reports. He is also a trustee of Roadsafe, the motor industry's road safety activity. 
Deryk Mead CBE was chief executive of NCH, the leading children’s charity, from 1996 to 2004 after a career as a chief officer in local government. He is a Public Member of Network Rail and holds a number of non-executive positions including NHS West Midlands and the Meat Hygiene Board.
Bill Samuel was previously chief executive of the East of England Regional Development Agency and prior to that was chief executive of Peterborough City Council. He holds a number of non-executive positions and is Deputy Chair of the Thurrock Thames Gateway Development Corporation. Bill chairs Passenger Focus's Audit Committee.
Barbara Saunders OBE is an independent consumer consultant with experience of public policy in the UK and European Union. She has held a number of non-executive positions and previously chaired the Financial Services Consumer panel and Insurance Ombudsman Bureau.
Stella Mair Thomas is a communications, media and marketing consultant, and was formerly Head of the Independent Television Commission for Wales and the West of England. Stella was appointed by the National Assembly for Wales.
Nigel Walmsley is chairman of Tourism South East and of the Broadcast Audience Research Board. He was formerly chairman of Carlton Television and, earlier, chief executive of the Capital Radio Group. Nigel chairs Passenger Focus's Remuneration committee.
Board Bus Advisers
Gavin Booth became the Chairman of Bus Users UK in 2005, after a long career in the bus industry and transport journalism.
Mike Parker started his career as a London Transport bus conductor before becoming, eventually, the Director General of Nexus (the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive).
Peter Wiltshire has enjoyed a long career as a transport planner, secretary of the 10% club (a marketing forum of senior bus industry professionals) and academic.
Our Chief Executive
Anthony Smith is our Chief Executive. Having qualified as a solicitor, Anthony worked for five years as principal consumer lawyer for the Consumers’ Association, publishers of Which? This was followed by a year as the legal consultant for Consumers International, a worldwide federation of consumer groups.
Prior to joining Passenger Focus, Anthony was deputy and acting director of ICSTIS, the regulator of premium rate telephone services.
Our Rail Passenger Director
Ashwin Kumar heads up the watchdog’s passenger link team which is responsible for liaising with train operating companies, Network Rail, stakeholders and the media to achieve improvements for passengers. He also oversees the Manchester-based passenger advice team, which takes up complaints on behalf of passengers dissatisfied with their train company’s response.
Ashwin joined Passenger Focus in late 2007 after working as an economist at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), where he was based for nine years. He has also worked previously as a Press Officer at the National Criminal Intelligence Service.
Our Bus Passenger Director
David Sidebottom is responsible for the planning and delivery of the new bus, coach and tram passenger representation duties that were first announced by the Secretary of State for Transport in March 2008.
David has been with Passenger Focus since January 2006 and previously spent over 11 years representing the needs and interests of energy consumers in the north west of England where he was Regional Director of energywatch, the gas and electricity consumer council.
Our Resources Director
Nigel Holden is responsible for providing professional support on all resource issues, including staff, finance and procurement, premises, and information technology.
Nigel has been with Passenger Focus since 2005 and before that was Finance Director at the NHS Pensions Agency for 10 years with responsibility for finance and human resources.
Our structure
If you would like to see details of the rest of our organisation please view our structure chart.