The Scotland Regional Hub were honoured to welcome Sarah Boyd, Managing Director of Lothian for another instalment of our ‘An Audience With’ series.
Over forty Women in Transport members joined an online event organised by the Scotland Regional Hub in February, to hear from Sarah Boyd, Managing Director of Lothian.
After brief introductions by Mailys Garden and Elinor Ross, both volunteers of the Scotland hub, Sarah provided an overview of her career to date, sharing information about her role and perspective at this pivotal time in the industry.
Sarah graduated with a Math and Finance degree from Dundee university before getting her first job in the bus sector through the Stagecoach graduate scheme. Fast forward 20 years later, with the last decade spent at Lothian as Head of Operations, Operations Director, and now Managing Director as of August 2022.
Key topics at the top of her agenda as MD of Lothian include the pandemic recovery, in particular its impact on recruitment and bus reliability as well as inclusivity and accessibility both internally and externally to the organisation.
The session then followed on with questions from a very engaged audience. Questions covered a very wide range of topics from accessibility, violence against women and girls, innovation and lessons learnt for other operators.
One key element that Sarah explained for the success of Lothian is the ‘alchemy’ between a de-stigmatised market, the autonomy that Lothian has and a sense of uniqueness which cannot be underestimated.
Sarah Boyd said ‘It was great to have the opportunity to be invited to speak with the Women in Transport audience.
I think in the future we’ll look back and recognise this time as being a period of change for our industry.
It is our collective responsibility to promote the benefits of a diverse culture, drive change and shine a spotlight on transport as a really great career choice.'
We were delighted to receive the following feedback from attendees:
‘I really enjoyed yesterday’s lunchtime session with Sarah Boyd – what a wonderful inspiration she is. Thank you for organising.’
This session has been recorded and can be made available for Women in Transport members who were not able to attend on the day. If you would like to request a copy of the recording, please email us at scotland@womenintransport.com
Lothian is a corporate partner of Women in Transport. Our partnership packages are a flexible and accessible way to support Women in Transport and your organisation's equity, diversity and inclusion objectives. Learn more about our partnership opportunities here and contact us if you would like a meeting to discuss how we can work together.