Richard Capper

Now on the road to retirement, Richard is the founder of the UIC. He is an expert in all aspects of organisational improvement and the creator of the UIMPROVE System of Improvement. He is also an experienced leader having led teams at both a supervisory and managerial level.

Before he became a consultant he managed to hold down some real jobs starting by selling tickets in the Booking Office at Nottingham station and later moving into operational management in the Regional Control at Crewe. He moved into organisational improvement by chance as Project Manager for a large quality initiative for British Rail's London Midland Region, then 36000 people strong.

He founded the UIC as a part-time venture in 1992, taking it full-time in 1994. He made his first trip to Australia in 1999 and shortly after put in motion a strategy to set up a fully Australian business which ultimately happened in 2010.

In 2018, Richard relinquished ownership of the UIC in the UK to his good friend and long-standing colleague Jon Machin. In 2023, after 93 trips to Australia, he declared himself fed up with flying and, although he still loves the clients, work and colleagues, decided to hang up his boots. At present, although retaining ownership of the Australian business, the next step is transition to a new ownership structure.

Richard's comprehensive knowledge of UIC clients and the science of improvement is still available as required and he is, as usual, working on the next versions of The Complete Guide to Improvement and The Complete Guide to Leadership.

Richard is an ExBrit having become a Dutch citizen in 2017. Now he is slightly less busy, he has been devoting more time to his passion for train riding. He also has endless boxes of treasure to review - photographs, timetables, tickets, posters and the like accumulated over many years. If you want advice about travelling by rail in Europe, Richard is your man.

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E-mail: [email protected]