Shaping workplace culture to the employees of today and those of the future is among the most important work an operator can do, outgoing Blackpool Transport Managing Director Jane Cole told delegates at the 2026 ALBUM conference on 13 May.
Ms Cole, who will retire from the municipal operator shortly, used her address to outline that while culture in the transport sector has developed greatly since she joined British Rail around 47 years ago, there is no opportunity for complacency in continuing that overhaul if inclusive and welcoming workplaces are to be delivered.
“Every interaction either reinforces a culture or shapes it,” she says. Following work with Bev Holden of The Clear Thinking Partnership, Ms Cole acknowledges how upon her arrival at Blackpool Transport in 2015, “the culture was not where it needed to be, and we were honest enough with ourselves to know that we needed help.”
Ms Holden’s business has engaged with the operator on that, but Ms Cole says that doing so requires more than a deck of slides. Instead, it calls for curiosity about the people within an organisation “and a willingness to get alongside them… and to understand what [is] really going on.”
Ms Cole notes how at the start of her railway career, there “were no clear pathways for women [and] no visible role models to follow,” adding that messrooms of the time could be physically and mentally testing.
“When I joined Blackpool Transport, I was able to understand that leadership in those environments is not about trying to fit in or overpower the culture. It is about shaping it. It means fostering a version of camaraderie that is inclusive rather than exclusive,” she continues.
That includes recognising how “the strongest teams are built not just on shared experience but on mutual understanding and trust,” Ms Cole says.
While items such as challenges particular to women and other groups, having to repeatedly prove credibility, and navigating language and behaviour that can “exclude without intention” are not always seen as headline issues in running an organisation, “they shape careers and confidence over time.”
Her own leadership was defined by those initial experiences, delegates heard. “I see how those early challenges and environments shaped me. They tested me. They strengthened me. And they ultimately defined me into the kind of leader I chose to become. One who does not ignore culture, but works to improve it.”
Despite that, Ms Cole argues how culture is not set in the boardroom. “It is made in the messroom, the signing on point, in the tone of a briefing and at 0600hrs,” she says.
As the leader of the award-winning bus and tram operator prepares to step aside for successor Lea Harrison, Ms Cole notes that she has not spent so long in transport to leave it how she found it at the age of 18.
“My wish is simple. That the person who walks into this industry today, whoever they are, finds an environment that was built for them. That is our work. It is not finished, and it is never finished. But it is the most important work that you can do.”
