Our Team

What Makes Fowler Welch

Our business has been built around our people and our values. Investment and growth allow us to develop talent within our business and attract high-calibre applicants, bringing in different skills to support the development of our great business.

John Kerrigan

John Kerrigan

CEO

Date Joined Fowler Welch

March 1, 1999

Personal Bio
John Kerrigan, Chief Executive Officer at Fowler Welch, was educated at Tunbridge Wells Grammar School for Boys, from where he took the brave decision to leave to start a career in 1995 with just his GCSE’s. He joined Citibank in London, working his way through various departments before leaving in 1999 to join the Coolchain business in Paddock Wood. Starting as a ‘progress chaser’, after being attracted at the interview to the unknown world of getting products efficiently from suppliers and ports to the supermarket shelf, John swiftly caught the distribution bug. He moved quickly through various roles in the business, finding himself as Operations Manager when the business was acquired by the Dart Group and began to merge with Fowler Welch. In the new and fast growing ‘Fowler Welch Coolchain’ business, John was quickly rewarded with roles as General Manager at Teynham, then Regional General Manager – South, with operational responsibility for two sites on the South Coast and three in Kent. In April 2009, John was appointed as National Operations Director, based at our Spalding Head Office, taking on responsibility for our day to day operations in Spalding, Washington, Kent, South Coast and Stockport as well as our vehicle fleet. Since then, John has successfully overseen the introduction of our Tesco Express operations in Washington and Newton Abbot, dedicated customer operations in Desborough, Slough, Tipton and Nuneaton, alongside significant growth in our Ambient business necessitating a new 500,000 sq.ft. facility in Heywood. In 2015, John progressed to the role of Chief Operating Officer. Alongside retaining accountability for our day to day operation and spending a significant amount of his time with our customers, John took control of our IT and Technical teams through their respective Directors covering; IT, SHEQ, Insurance, Procurement, Engineering and Central Administration. In 2020 John was promoted to Chief Executive Officer, leading the business forward having nurtured a management team that ensures Fowler Welch’s core standards to customers are exceeded and maintains consistent leadership and direction across all operations. Together with other teams in the business, they help ensure the business delivers the company’s core beliefs of “Listening, Responding and Delivering” – both for customers and colleagues alike.

John Kerrigan

CEO

Martin Davies

Martin Davies

Operations Director

Date Joined Fowler Welch

Personal Bio

Martin started his career on the Whitbread Graduate Training Scheme in 1990 having completed an Honours degree in Economics and Geography at Coventry. It was during a placement year with Exel Logistics that Martin knew the world of Transport was a profession he was passionate about relishing the fast pace of operations and importantly the focus on people.

During 17 years in the Brewing industry as Whitbread became part of Interbrew and then InBev Martin undertook a wide set of roles from Site Management, Strategic projects, Contract Management and European Logistics Development. The diverse nature of the roles alongside a business that was developing to become part of a global leader was an exciting time providing a good grounding in all aspects of the supply chain. It was during this time Martin gained an MBA from the OU Business School helping to contextualise the business changes the brewing industry had experienced while furthering his educational qualifications.

With the next role likely to mean a move to Belgium, family wishes considered, Martin took the opportunity to remain UK based by joining Palmer and Harvey (P&H) in 2007 where he quickly became National Operations Director looking after their 14 Distribution sites across the UK. He joined the business during the evolution of the business towards a truly Multi Temperature, Multi Drop operation having just undertaken a MBO, significant infrastructure change and ways of working were a challenge everyone rose to over a 2 year programme of change. Martin is particularly proud of the progress made including the opening of the new 170k square foot warehouse at Hemel Hempstead while ensuring customer service was maintained throughout.

From Palmer and Harvey Martin joined Bidvest 3663 in 2013 as Director of Operations for the Midlands region looking after the operations in a number of locations while also playing a key role in the Operations Strategy Exec in this leading Food Service provider. Before departing structural changes saw Martin take responsibility for a number of sales teams both site and field based alongside his project and operational responsibilities.

The chance to join Fowler Welch in August 2015 was too good an opportunity to miss with an industry reputation for service based on true collaboration backed by operational excellence the draw was obvious. My aim is to ensure we continually evolve our operation with the customer at the heart of everything we do thus helping us to succeed together.

Martin Davies

Operations Director

Lynda Hulme

Lynda Hulme

HR Director

Date Joined Fowler Welch

Personal Bio
Lynda Hulme, HR Director at Fowler Welch, has a degree in Business Studies and a professional diploma in HR management, both obtained prior to starting work in the hard-edged world of manufacturing. Before joining Fowler Welch, Lynda worked in banking and insurance for 12 years, in a variety of HR and operational management roles, having joined the forward thinking, socially responsible Co-operative Bank in 2005. During this time, she supported a wide range of business sectors as an HR practitioner, including retail and corporate banking. As important, Lynda also chose to spend time as an operational line manager in a number of customer contact centres which gave her an unparalleled, first hand understanding of managing both teams and individuals. After a short break to establish her own hospitality sector business, Lynda joined Fowler Welch. While she had little knowledge of the industry, she quickly became addicted to the pace and challenge of logistics and, more specifically, to the drive to shape a people agenda and ensure on-going support and investment in both management capability and the wider workforce. Through her team, Lynda has overseen the introduction of a number of initiatives in support of the overall people strategy, including a performance management / development process, management process and soft skills workshops and a range of employee benefits including childcare vouchers, a cycle to work scheme, a colleague referral programme and a collision reduction incentive scheme for LGV drivers. Under Lynda’s leadership, the HR function at Fowler Welch has developed from being reactive and transaction-focused into more ‘valued adding’, supporting and enabling change across the business. It now works in close partnership with the operational and support teams to ensure the people activities are aligned to the vision of being an ‘Employer of Choice’.

Lynda Hulme

HR Director

David Loe

David Loe

Financial Director

Date Joined Fowler Welch

Personal Bio
David joined Fowler Welch in 2021, having taken his first accounting role in 1990 as a trainee for a pharmaceutical retailer.  His career progression saw him tackle roles in a variety of sectors at Construction Contractor, NHS Trust and Texas Homecare.  He later joined Dawson Rentals as Group Accountant before moving on to Accountant for their main operating divisions.   In this time he qualified as an Accountant with CIMA and continued to progress in his career moving to Hays in 1999 as Management Accountant.  Through the changes of ownership he moved on with ACR Logistics and then Kuene & Nagel where he held various finance roles from Finance Controller, Divisional Finance Controller and took on significant responsibility as Finance Director for Contract Logistics.  He was further promoted to Head of Controlling for Kuene & Nagel UK, taking on responsibility for the commercial control of what was a £1.6bn business.   David was heavily involved in the sale of the Contract Logistics business to XPO in 2020, moving across to work with them in January 2021 to ensure a seamless integration of the transferring business.  From here, David joined Fowler Welch in mid 2021 as Finance Director.

David Loe

Financial Director

Jonathan Lee

Jonathan Lee

Head of Sales

Date Joined Fowler Welch

Personal Bio
Jonathan Lee was educated at Maidstone Grammar School for boys and, on completing his education here, he chose to move straight into the commercial sector. He started his working life in the distribution industry with Henley Transport as a traffic operator. In a typically thorough approach to his work, Jonathan threw himself into a wide variety of role opportunities, covering everything in his early days from order entry to planning and organising drivers. His energy and dedication saw him make quick progress through the business. He soon moved into an early role as Transport Manager, before rising to the position of Operations Manager and finally General Manager. Jonathan then moved into account management with Fowler Welch, with responsibility for one of the company’s largest customers. This central role gave him a strong working knowledge of all the sites and his fellow team members across the Fowler Welch network. Now, in more recent years, his role has grown to encompass business development for the whole of south of the UK, covering all aspects of the business from transport movements to warehousing and consolidation. Jonathan’s earlier operational experience, with its exposure to our broad capabilities and inherent flexibility, has been an ideal platform for his new position. He was promoted to Head of Sales in 2016. Jonathan is a family man with two children and, when time allows, his outside interests include football, sports, cooking and wine collecting.

Jonathan Lee

Head of Sales

Jimmy Lee

Jimmy Lee

Head of Operations

Date Joined Fowler Welch

Personal Bio
Jimmy Lee, the Head of Operations for Chill at Fowler Welch, was born and raised in Huddersfield where he attended All Saints Secondary School and Sixth Form College. He began his working career with a food manufacturing company, where, for twelve years, he gained invaluable experience across a variety of management positions in several locations nationwide. Jimmy followed this with a move into the mainstream logistics sector, joining Corby Chilled Distribution. He spent ten very successful years with the company, working in a number of varied management roles that culminated with his position as Operations Director. In this role he held direct responsibility for the company’s national chilled network based over six sites. Following the buy out of Corby Chilled in 2006, Jimmy transferred to Innovate Logistics, taking on the role of Transport and Chilled Warehousing Director. He joined Fowler Welch in 2008 as Regional General Manager (North), before taking the position of Head of Operations for Chill and Express. In his current position he has responsibility for the company’s operations in Kent, Hilsea , Washington and Spalding. In Jimmy’s younger days he was a professional Rugby League player with Huddersfield, a team he still supports very actively today.

Jimmy Lee

Head of Operations

Will Langham

Will Langham

Operations Director

Date Joined Fowler Welch

Personal Bio

Will Langham

Operations Director

Why work at Fowler Welch

We aim to provide an excellent working environment for all colleagues in line with our Be an Employer of Choice value, to benefit all current and future employees. Our goal is to offer a respectful and engaging environment; satisfying and enjoyable work activity and a rewarding mixture of pay and benefits.

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