PALLET pooler IPP has appointed ex-rugby professional Andy Maddock as head of its UK and Ireland business.
Andy joins the Coventry-based firm after three decades working in the beer industry for Scottish and Newcastle, Caledonian Brewery, Heineken, and Purity Brewing Company.
The former Wasps and Rosslyn Park rugby player is bringing his FMCG and SME experience to IPP, which provides reusable pallet and box pooling services.
Andy said his entrepreneurial streak came from watching his parents run their own grocery business. At university, he opened two coffee bars on campus.
After working his way up to become sales director for Scottish and Newcastle (S&N) in the UK, Andy progressed to his first general management position as MD of Caledonian Brewery, which was part of the Heineken acquisition of S&N, in 2013.
“Working for Scottish and Newcastle, I was responsible for brands such as Foster’s, John Smiths, Kronenbourg 1664 and Strongbow when it was the number one brewer in the UK,” he said.
When Andy was at Heineken, he was involved in major projects including Champions League and Heineken Cup Rugby sponsorship and activation, as well as the 2012 Olympics, progressing to a leadership position in Europe leading on change management.
“The work was centred around really energising the Heineken business around the craft movement, working on major global sponsorships and activations,” he added. “I then progressed to a role focusing on changing Heineken’s processes behaviourally, to make business more fleet of foot and agile. We were taking things which would normally take 18 months and making them 18-week processes. I worked across 23 markets in Europe for Heineken, running more 200 projects, embedding the behaviour change as best we could.”
Andy then joined Alcester-based Purity Brewing Company in 2021, where he was also group CEO between July 2022 and November 2023.
His path to joining IPP came from first meeting the company’s chief financial officer, Rob De Weert, while working for Heineken, further meetings with the IPP CEO Thomas Damson and finally the Faber Group chief executive Ingrid Faber.
He said, “IPP interested me because I’ve been in and around logistics all my life, but not at the front and centre. The more I talked to individuals in the business, the more interested I was and the more I found it aligned with my value set – family-based, people-oriented and customer experience-centric. All of those things shone off the page and brought me in with even more vigour and interest.
“Although my background is in change and transformation, this role is about helping to bring stability, alongside the well-established team in the UK&I. It’s about bringing knowledge from bigger organisations and different thinking that creates solidity to build on the already established foundations in the very short term and then to enable growth.”
IPP CEO Thomas Domson added, “We are delighted that Andy joins IPP at this time. He brings a wealth of leadership experience from a number of businesses to the IPP UK and Ireland organisation at an exciting time for us.
“He will play an important role in enhancing the business, bringing both stability and the ability to grow over time. We are a family values and people-based business – Andy compliments that well.”
