WEALTH July 21, 2026 0 Comments

The Untold Strategies Behind David McRedmond’s Game-Changing Tenure at An Post — What Every Leader Needs to Know

Imagine standing atop Dublin’s tallest office block, the Exo Building, with the city sprawling beneath you—rivers converging, shipping containers dotting the docks like a scene straight out of a vintage children’s book. That’s where David McRedmond, the outgoing CEO of An Post, finds himself reflecting on a transformative decade steering this historic institution through the choppy waters of digital disruption and e-commerce surges. When revenue finally smashed the €1 billion mark in 2024 and parcel deliveries hit a staggering 73 million in 2025, it was clear McRedmond had done more than just keep the lights on—he’d reinvented how a postal service stays relevant in an increasingly virtual world. But what’s the secret sauce behind that evolution? Spoiler alert: it all started in a London bookshop, with a history degree, a bit of hustle, and an uncanny instinct to dive into areas no one else wanted to touch. Buckle up, because this isn’t your typical corporate farewell—it’s a candid journey through leadership, resilience, and daring to dream bigger than anyone thought possible. LEARN MORE

David McRedmond, outgoing CEO of An Post, is speaking with Business Plus from the rooftop terrace of the Exo Building, Dublin’s tallest office block. High above the docklands, its view includes the confluence of the Dodder and Liffey rivers, the Grand Canal and the Irish Sea.

Turning slightly to the left, the vast expanse of blue, yellow and red lorries, trucks and shipping containers spread out below is reminiscent of an illustration from Richard Scarry’s book Cars and Trucks and Things That Go.

McRedmond’s legacy after 10 years at the helm of An Post will be considerable. In 2024, revenue surpassed €1 billion for the first time in company history, while in 2025 their Mails & Parcels division handled 73 million parcels thanks to a surge in e-commerce.

McRedmond’s love for retail began in London when, after graduating from University College Dublin with a history degree, he worked at the bookshop Waterstones.

“I couldn’t get any other job. I hadn’t any money, so I thought I’d do this for a while. But I just loved running a store.”

McRedmond would go on to become great friends with the owner, Tim Waterstone.

“He was a real model for me. [It was great] to learn leadership at a very young age and to be given positions of responsibility.”

McRedmond credits his then boss for teaching him how to aim high.

“He always saw [that] things could be bigger. He had this grand vision for Waterstones, that this would be a way to revive and bring culture to the heart of British towns and he wasn’t wrong. That gave me the idealistic sense that you can go somewhere and dream big.”

McRedmond’s role as operations director ultimately brought him to the US to open bookshops before WH Smith bought the company.

“It was the saddest day of my career to leave Waterstones. They [WH Smith] put me in charge of WH Smith stores in railway stations and airports and I thought, ‘this is terrible, what do I do?’”

McRedmond put together a small team and galvanised the energy to be found at these locations.

“There’s a magic around travel, even if it’s just commuting. I thought you could connect with that and really support commuters with the things they need and want, which is very much a Waterstones way of looking at things, make it all about the customer,” McRedmond says.

Within a year, he recalls, those railway station and airport bookshops had taken off.

“There was no business I went into that I had more success in so instantly. Bizarrely, at the time, nobody in WH Smith wanted to work in those businesses. I always say to MBA students, go where nobody wants to work. Don’t all rush to Google or Anthropic. [They are] doing really well, so you’re not going to make much of a difference. You’ll make a difference if you join something that has been under-invested in and has huge potential.”

After a stint in the US, he returned to Ireland and worked for Eircom.

“I ran businesses for them. It was probably the only unhappy time in my career. I found it a very aggressive environment and very non-customer-focused. I felt, ‘wow, this is a shock to the system’.”

McRedmond concedes that he made money at Eircom, “for which I’m grateful” and came across another key mentor.

“Tony O’Reilly really tended to see things from the furthest distance [with] a great sense of perspective. It’s all about what’s going on in the world and that’s another fabulous piece of learning.”

This was followed by a seminal period in TV3.

“I was brought in just before the financial crash. We had two brilliant years, then it became a real struggle just to keep the thing afloat. We never lost sight of our vision, though, which was to create an Irish broadcaster. We built the first HD studio in Ireland. I asked if it was the biggest studio. The architect said, ‘well, we looked at RTÉ, it’s the same size as The Late Late Show studio’. I said, just make it an extra 10 metres bigger, in a kind of Trumpian way.”

Years later, McRedmond still registers delight and satisfaction at how TV3 (now Virgin Media) kept its footing after UTV launched an Irish channel in 2015.

“They tried to kill us opening here and I loved it that we killed them. I just thought they were cynical, saying ‘we’ve got the most popular programmes’. But do you stand for anything? The TV3 audience really mattered and it’s a fabulous audience.”

McRedmond’s palpable respect for customers informed his strategy when he took on the role of CEO of An Post in 2016. He saw the potential of the then somewhat down-at-heel brand that nevertheless played an integral part in Irish life with a core business that was dying.

“I thought, it’s a phenomenal brand. Everybody knows it. I had the instinct that there was something special about it. That this can be a fantastic success.”

He still registers astonishment at how negative people were, and can be, about the organisation.

“This is a great network with great people working in it. What is it that you’re missing? ‘Oh, nobody wants to use it anymore.’ But every business is dying unless you’re within five years of being a startup. That’s the nature of business. You have to find the next thing. What you need is a brand that’s got a connection to people and a place in society. Then work out what you do. For us, it was so obvious. As soon as I saw e-commerce coming our way, I said, ‘this is it, we’ve got to grab this’.”

McRedmond’s approach to sorting out An Post’s finances was robust from the beginning. He threatened the government with putting the utility into examinership unless the price cap was lifted. Reluctantly, they agreed and he increased the price of stamps by 40 per cent.

“The price of a stamp was kind of meaningless to people. The reason mail is declining is because electronic versions are more efficient and easier, it’s not due to the price.”

With the core economics in hand, McRedmond brought in consultants McKinsey & Company. He also credits the Communications Workers Union as being hugely influential in the direction An Post ultimately took.

“The union said to me, ‘we’ve got to be in parcels’. Unions know the business inside out. They’ve a slightly different agenda, but only slightly. They want the company to do well, we want to do well, and I hugely respect them. So between them on the one hand and McKinsey on the other saying you need to be in e-commerce, it was kind of obvious.”

An Post has 10,000 employees and last February announced plans to hire an additional 300 postmen and women.

“We’re at capacity, we have so much volume coming through our door. As a delivery business, you’re entirely reliant on what’s called ‘the final mile’. We also need more post offices, transactions went up by about 5 per cent last year.”

An Post’s shift of focus from letters to parcels grew exponentially after it cemented a partnership with Vinted, the Lithuanian-founded, peer-to-peer, online marketplace where you can buy, sell and swap second-hand clothes.

The arrangement, for which McRedmond credits his “brilliant” marketing team’s successful pitch, links the An Post shipping system directly to the platform’s checkout page.The steadily increasing footfall of a younger cohort into post offices has been a game changer for An Post.

“We like the circular economy and Vinted is such a clever idea. We’re at 40 per cent growth [in parcels] this year.”

McRedmond says e-commerce accounts for just 22 per cent of retailing and predicts, not surprisingly, that it’s only set to grow. A planning meeting on the morning of our interview was focused on An Post’s network for 2030. With the biggest delivery fleet in the country, their desire is to be fully electric.

Currently they’re at over 50 per cent, but the ability to increase this is hampered, McRedmond says, by insufficient electricity for the charging points. “Everything in this country is just creaking a bit.”

The Dundrum native hopes to rectify this, in Dublin at least. He is now chair of the Taoiseach’s Dublin City Taskforce, looking at how the capital can be improved.

“I’ve always loved urbanism and postal organisations are at the heart of it. We know every street. I love this city. The suburbs of Dublin are the most beautiful suburbs in almost any city anywhere. They did really well during Covid, [following] that famous Parisian idea of the 15-minute city, staying closer to home, going out locally. The suburbs have done phenomenally, but [Covid] had a really devastating impact on the city centre.”

Part of McRedmond’s suggested solution for urban decay is to have more people living in the city centre. He cites the former Carlton Cinema site on O’Connell Street as an ideal location for high-density residential homes, with potentially hundreds of apartments reserved for essential workers like gardaí, nurses, teachers and municipal staff.

“The Assistant Garda Commissioner said that would transform the city centre far more than putting in another 1,000 guards.”

Another factor to consider when planning improvements to Dublin city is the inexorable shift, already happening by stealth, in our shopping habits.

“I’m a bricks-and-mortar retailer, so I don’t like talking it down, but the reality is it’s declining. Retailers are going bust every week.”

McRedmond predicts a city of the future where retail outlets will be concentrated in one or two shopping centres, thereby enabling a much greater mix on the streets. He contends that it makes no sense to zone Henry Street and O’Connell Street as retailing.

“There won’t be just streets of shops with shutters down in the evening. There won’t be ghost towns.”

As for the future of An Post, he ponders on what qualities his successor there will need. He describes the shareholder as naturally risk-averse and pessimistic and says the new CEO will need extraordinary optimism.

Otherwise, “you can give in to a dystopian view of the future. Don’t spend money, have fewer people, less risk, get smaller. You need huge energy to escape the gravitational pull of people who are just doing their job. That will start to change, because I think the government recognises it needs to change.”

As for what McRedmond would tackle if he were to take on another CEO role, which he says he won’t, his relish for a challenge remains seemingly indefatigable; he says transport is a sector with massive potential.

“I’d love to be CEO of Irish Rail. It’s a phenomenal opportunity. It’s been massively under-invested in and it just needs a big vision. Look for the assets that mean something to people. In the end, our customers really get it. They know what needs to be done and they respond with generosity to any improvements.”

An Post CFO Peter Quinn and CEO David McRedmond. (Pic: MAXWELLS)

He references the initiative An Post took during the pandemic lockdown when they sent out two free postcards to every home.

“People loved it. It didn’t cost us anything because we were delivering them. It caused me a bit of a heart attack when I suddenly thought, what if cardboard can spread Covid? But we went ahead and it lit up the place because of the human connection.”

An Post Retail: A Decade of Transformation

Revenue Increased by 20 per cent since 2018 (c.€190m to c.€227m).
Financial services Accounts for 53 per cent of retail revenues, representing the core engine of growth including the An Post Money brand and new products. Over 870 post offices nationwide with 900,000 customers per week.
Post Delivering to 2.4 million addresses daily, reflecting a 10 per cent increase over the last decade.
Parcels 370 per centgrowth in parcel volume since 2019. 79 million parcels in 2025 and an expectation of over 100m this year.
Sustainability 50 per cent reduction in carbon emissions ahead of target in 2026.

Photo: David McRedmond. (Pic: Tom Honan)