Ruth Todd

Biography

Ruth joined HS2 in July 2021. She is a member of both the Executive Team, reporting directly to Chief Executive Mark Thurston, and the HS2 Board. Ruth will head up the new Commercial Directorate, where she will have responsibility for HS2’s procurement, commercial and contract management including land and property related activity.

Ruth joined HS2 from the Covid-19 Vaccine Task Force, where she led the programme to deliver coronavirus vaccines for the UK. Prior to this, Ruth was Commercial Director at the Submarine Delivery Agency, an executive agency of the Ministry of Defence. She previously worked for Babcock International where she managed the Land Equipment (military vehicles and other army equipment) support supply chain. Prior to that she was programme director for Jaguar Land Rover improving their inbound supply chain.

She spent 14 years in consultancy and had the opportunity to support aerospace, defence, retail, logistics, automotive and industrial sectors, both in front line manufacturing and support services. Much of her career has been in transformational management; leading teams through change to deliver practical operational improvements.

Her early career was in the automotive sector working in production, supply chain, procurement and strategy roles. Ruth has a degree in Manufacturing Engineering and is a Chartered Member of the Institute of Logistics and Transportation and the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply.