Sandra Géhénot, Director of the UIC Freight Department since November 2016, will now combine her role with the coordination of the European region.
Ms. Géhénot, BA Languages, MSC Business holds a long-standing career in rail with assignments as Key Account Manager for Railfreight Distribution (British Rail) and EWS (now DB Cargo) before joining UIC in 2000 as Senior Freight Advisor. She stood at the cradle of many projects in combined transport, rail operation and corridor development both in Europe () and on a global level with transcontinental developments. She is well appreciated for all her efforts on RailFreightForward the coalition of the rail freight operators in Europe. She liaises regularly with many international partners such as UNECE, OTIF, CIT, UIRR, BIC…
In her role as Coordinator for Europe she will build on the work done by Simon fletcher and will boost the development of a close collaboration with all European stakeholders to assure the rail sector in all its technical matters – passenger, freight and network – is properly supported and represented.
To strengthen the freight department, Philip Van den bosch will support her as newly appointed Deputy Director Freight. Philip has been working for UIC since 2019 as Senior Freight Strategy Advisor on the development of rail freight, the RailFreightForward coalition and modal shift strategies. He is managing special groups on combined transport or international logistics and also works on the development of transcontinental corridors.
As Master of Arts in Economics with additional degrees in Supply Chain management and purchasing, he has a broad knowledge of many supply chain structures and strategies. He contributes from time to time to industry articles and tends to be active on social media where he comments with a twist on contemporary supply chain challenges.
Ms. Géhénot takes over from Simon Fletcher, the former UIC Coordinator Europe who has left the UIC to pursue other challenges. By many of his colleagues in the sector characterised as a tower of strength! Working as a railway professional since 1977 he joined the UIC in 2003 and was appointed as a member of the Board of Directors in 2009. Simon was responsible for establishing the UIC’s safety portfolio and supporting unit at the time when the European Safety Directive was emerging. Part of this was shining a spotlight on the level crossing topic and the road/rail interface and he was instrumental in getting ELCAD (now known as ILCAD) started. He provided major contributions to the development of the interoperability, safety management and standardisation structures of the railway system.
The whole team of the UIC warmly thanks Simon, for his involvement and commitment for the European region and wishes him all the best for other endeavors in France or elsewhere.
