Football boss transfers to Royal Mail in £1m deal

Leighton springs surprise by hiring head of New Zealand Post to create dream team

Adam Crozier, the former Football Association boss, is to take over as chief executive of the loss-making Royal Mail on a £1m-a-year salary and bonus package, it was confirmed yesterday.

But in a surprise twist, the Royal Mail chairman, Allan Leighton, has also drafted in a postal services veteran from New Zealand as executive deputy chairman with wide-ranging responsibilities across the group. Like Mr Crozier, Elmar Toime will be on a basic salary of £500,000 with the opportunity to double that if Royal Mail achieves its financial turnaround. But Mr Toime, currently chief executive of New Zealand Post, will be Mr Crozier's boss. The two men start in February.

Mr Leighton described the combination of the two men's talents as "a very powerful cocktail" which would help turn Royal Mail back into the "best postal service in the world". It is currently losing £1m a day and the target is to achieve a financial turnaround in three years so that the organisation is making £400m in profit by 2005.

It is thought that Royal Mail had been lining up the head of the transport group TNT, Alan Jones, to be Royal Mail's new chief executive in succession to John Roberts, who retires today. But it became clear that Mr Jones was not interested in sharing the role. "He was an outstanding candidate but he is also a one-man band," said a person close to the selection process.

Mr Leighton said he had felt "a bit like Cilla Black on Blind Date" bringing Mr Crozier and Mr Toime together and then seeing whether they would hit it off in their respective roles. They met in London last month for the first time. "Having seen them together I am confident it will work," Mr Leighton said. "Two brains leading a business are better than one and this is a big task. These appointments are probably the most pivotal in Royal Mail's history."

The appointment of a full-time deputy chairman will also allow Mr Leighton to step back from a day-to-day executive role at Royal Mail, although he said he still expected to be putting in two days a week until June at least.

Mr Crozier, 38, was forced out of his job at the FA in October after losing a power struggle with the powerful club chairmen of the Premier League. A former chief executive of the advertising agency Saatchi and Saatchi and a one-time Mars executive, he has been selected for his "modernising skills".

Mr Toime, 55, is Italian by birth and has been chief executive of New Zealand Post since 1993. He is credited with turning the organisation around and bringing it back into profit at a time when the New Zealand postal market was being opened up to competition, as is now happening in the UK.

Mr Crozier will be responsible for marketing, finance, IT and human resources as well as Parcelforce and the trunking business of Royal Mail. Mr Toime will take charge of the core Royal Mail letters business and its German Parcel business. He will also sit on the board of Post Office Limited, which runs the company's 17,500-strong branch network.

There have been 11 new appointments to the Royal Mail board since Mr Leighton took over as chairman in January.