Toll Global Express hiring, turning a corner on profit: former Australia Post boss Christine Holgate

The former Australia Post chief executive, now Toll Global Express boss, says she will continue to speak out about her treatment by Scott Morrison.

Christine Holgate says Toll Global Express has turned a corner. Picture: John Feder

Toll Global Express will step up hiring as its business expands and turns the corner from a $200m a year loss, according to chief executive Christine Holgate.

“We’re trying to recruit people,” Ms Holgate said.

“If you could give me a thousand more people I could give you a thousand more jobs.”

Toll Global Express – which provides express parcel, freight delivery and domestic forwarding services in Australia and transport and contract logistics in New Zealand – currently has some 15,000 employees and third party contractors across both countries.

In her first major interview since taking over as chief executive six months ago, Ms Holgate said Toll Global Express, which was bought last year by private equity fund manager Allegro Funds, was starting to turn the corner, reducing its losses with revenue growing by nine per cent in the financial year to date and was now headed toward profitability.

Ms Holgate, who stood down as chief executive of Australia Post after a personal attack by Scott Morrison over her decision to give Cartier watches to four senior executives in October 2020, was speaking after being named the winner of the Australian Awards for Excellence in Women’s Leadership by Women & Leadership Australia.

Speaking from her office at the Toll Global Express headquarters in the Sydney suburb of Botany, Ms Holgate said the company had faced significant challenges.

“Just a couple of years ago it was losing $200m. It has lost $1bn in revenue over the past few years … but I’m really pleased to say that we’re growing,” she said.

“That is pretty amazing when you have had a business which has had so much churn in it and losing more than it was winning, to be able to be able to overcome doubt and get us growing again has been fantastic.”

She said the group’s revenue was growing at more than nine per cent for the financial year to date.

The past month had seen revenues growing at some 15 per cent a year.

“It is pretty good, given we haven’t had any revenue growth for years.”

She said changes she had introduced in the company involved having much more customer focus, stripping away layers of bureaucracy to allow management more decision making power and announcing moves to bring its credit management operations back from India to Australia and its customer services operations back from the Philippines. “We’ve seen a 35 per cent improvement in the grade of service we give our customers,” she said.

She said she hoped to convince more businesses using Australia Post for their parcel delivery to also consider using Toll Global Express as secondary supplier.

She said supply chain disruptions as a result of Covid-19 highlighted the importance of companies having more than one logistics supplier.

In her interview, Ms Holgate made it clear she was prepared to continue to speak up about her treatment as Australia Post chief executive which she had said saw her near suicidal as a result of her public humiliation by the Prime Minister who told in parliament that “she should go” after revelations that she had given the watches to executives who had worked to bring about a $220m investment in community post offices.

Ms Holgate – who made an emotional speech last week on her receipt of her second chief executive of the year award by CEO Magazine – is expected to take a higher profile over the next week in the lead up to International Women’s Day on March 8.

In her speech last week she described herself as “the road kill of the Prime Minister who sought a major distraction” from issues such as the amount paid for land near the second Sydney airport and the $1.5bn robo debt controversy.

“There are some things in this country that we really need to embrace – and that is safety, respect and equity,” she told The Australian.

She said the government needed to adopt all 55 recommendations of a report by Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins which looked at the culture in parliament in the wake of the revelations about the treatment of former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins.

“I don’t think any of us should feel proud of reports that one in five women in Australia is likely to sexually assaulted and two in five are going to feel harassed or bullied in the workplace,” she said.

“And it is higher when you take those figures to federal parliament.”

Toll has struggled since it was part of a group sold to Japan Post for $6.5bn in 2015.

Ms Holgate said she planned to change the name of Toll Global Express because of confusion with the operations of its former associate companies – Toll Global Logistics and Global Forwarding business.

She said long-time DHL executive Ken Allen had agreed this week to buy a stake in Toll Global Express and become an adviser to the company and a mentor to her as chief executive.

The London-based Mr Allen, who helped to transform DHL from a loss making group to a profit, is set to step down later this year as chief executive of its e-commerce business.

Ms Holgate said Mr Allen was “a bit like the demigod of logistics” and would play a valuable role in advising the company “as we take on this transformation and we build out our capacity.”

“There is no one who is credited with transforming more supply chain businesses around the world than Ken.”