PMG names two new VPs
WASHINGTON, DC —Postmaster General John E. Potter has named Pritha Mehra vice president of Business Mail Entry and Payment Technologies and Maura Robinson vice president of Pricing. These newly created positions are the latest in the Postal Service’s reorganization efforts to leverage competitive opportunities resulting from recent changes in federal law.
On July 1, Potter announced that he had created two new divisions, Shipping and Mailing Services and Customer Relations, and strengthened another, the Office of Intelligent Mail® and Address Quality. All are intended to position the Postal Service to meet the challenges ahead.
Mehra will be responsible for an end-to-end, mail flow visibility strategy as well as for a seamless process for mail acceptance, payment, and delivery using standardized Intelligent Mail barcodes, continuous tracking, and mail-quality feedback in real time. She will report to Tom Day, senior vice president of Intelligent Mail and Address Quality.
Robinson’s duties will include pricing all postal and non-postal products and services, and providing analytical support and evaluation of all contract pricing and new product initiatives. She will report to Stephen Kearney, who was recently promoted to senior vice president of Customer Relations. Kearney served previously as vice president of Pricing and Classification.
“Pritha and Maura have both demonstrated their abilities to identify and understand the needs of our customers in a changing environment,” said Potter. “Their leadership skills will be invaluable as we continue to make the strategic changes necessary to help us improve service and increase market share.”
In her previous position, Mehra served as manager of Marketing Technology and Channel Management, where she led significant technological changes in business mail acceptance processes. She began her Postal Service career in 1990 as a computer programmer.
Formerly, Robinson was manager of Pricing Systems and Analysis, where she was instrumental in management of the Postal Service’s price changes and the transition to a new regulatory environment. She began her Postal Service career in 1998 as an economist.
Postal execs in Orlando for NEC
From the Alliance of NonProfit Mailers Breaking News page:
Postal Service executives from across the nation are traveling to Orlando, FL today to attend the Postal Service’s 2006 National Executive Conference. The top several hundred postal executives will meet all day Wednesday and half the day Thursday to hear Postmaster General Jack Potter and other postal leaders discuss the successes of 2006 and the challenges of the future. Once known as a rather lavish and festive gathering for postal executives, the executive conferences conducted by PMG Potter are more business and less play. Beyond the full day business agenda, the conference is a good opportunity for executives to network and match notes with their peers.
Federal Times calls on Potter to act on Jaffer case, or step down
In a sternly worded editorial, the Federal Times last week called on Postmaster General Jack Potter to take action against disgraced former executive Azeezaly Jaffer, or make way for “a new leadership team”. The paper points out that “Jaffer’s alleged improprieties were known and apparently tacitly accepted for years before he finally resigned in June”.
The editorial, published in the August 21 print edition of the paper, asserts that “What has been sorely absent here is basic leadership from Postmaster General John Potter”, that both the PMG and the Office of Inspector General “failed to take allegations against Jaffer seriously when they first surfaced, and he failed to ensure that the proper controls were in place to prevent the kind of wasteful spending exemplified in the IG report”.
The piece concludes: “Potter and the leadership of the Postal Service have a choice to make now. The IG report documents a strong case, depicting a public official who ran amok with his official credit card, sexually harassed fellow employees and abused his trusted position. If Potter doesn’t think that merits criminal or other punitive action, perhaps it is time for a new leadership team to take charge of the U.S. Postal Service.”