A brief history

Established in 1997 by John Nelson, First Class Partnerships steadily built its consulting caseload and reputation throughout the UK Rail Industry before, in 2000, Mike Tham, Tony Roche and Mike Jones joined the company as Directors.

By early 2001 the company had reached a size that required more formal structures and practices to assure quality and encourage growth. Richard George joined from First Group as a Director and shareholder to put these in place.

In spring 2002 Pete Wilkinson was recruited as Managing Director and, as a result of being asked for professional advice on railway technical and engineering matters, Bob Clarke, previously the CEO of Jarvis Rail, joined the company as a Director and shareholder in summer of that year.

In 2004 we expanded further with the appointment of William Barter as Head of our Operations practice and later the same year we opened an office in Buenos Aires under the management of Tony Vallejo. In 2005 John Self OBE joined our Board as Director, Metro Operations, then with demands for commercial and analytical capabilities increasing, Lisa Mota Pinto joined us from the Docklands Light Railway as lead commercial adviser in 2006. 

The company sponsors associates who bring the specialised skills necessary to support the wide-ranging nature of assignments being undertaken. You would be hard put to find a railway discipline where an experienced consultant could not be offered at short notice to hit the ground running on the basis of deep personal experience of providing a customer-fronting passenger or freight service, or supply chain expertise in the many and extensive elements required to run a railway.