Although Woodward had been receiving treatment for cancer she never allowed this to define her or to prevent her working as much as possible. Moreover she never felt sorry for herself, making the news announced on 22 August all the more stunning.
Woodward had become chief executive, on a two-year contract, in succession to Michael Johnson in 2011. While he had championed the need for printers to adopt new business models, she had emphasised the importance of training and development of personnel to adapt and thrive on change. It was a message that she had carried throughout a career that had started at British computer business ICL. A number of the colleagues from those days continue to be part of the team that has delivered the BPIF’s Level 5 management training to young managers across the industry.
She left ICL to join Robert Maxwell’s British Newspaper Printing Corporation, then moving from Fleet Street and switching to web offset printing and leading the cultural shift needed to ensure that this worked without the disruption that other national newspapers faced.
Joining the newly independent BPCC, Woodward took on development of a cadre of graduates that had joined the business, among them Simon Biltcliffe, now chief executive of Webmart. “She took me under her wing,” he says. “She was one of the nicest people you could meet. She really was firm but fair and really did care about people, wanting them to achieve their best and has always been there to support you. She was full of drive and personality and I’m delighted to have known her for so long. We need people like that in the industry.”
From there, she joined a company in Huntingdon called Astron that David Mitchell had acquired in a management buyout for £7 million. The business would succeed if it could transform from being an outsourced inplant print operation into a business services and logistics company. Woodward was its group HR and operations director. The business grew rapidly, attracting further investment before being sold to RR Donnelley for £520 million, but Woodward had already moved on. Her management style was thoroughly inclusive, aiming to stimulate people so that they looked forward to work as much as she did. She discovered Brazilian entrepreneur Richard Semler’s book Maverick! and it distilled her management philosophy.
“Semler gave me hope that I wasn’t mad as a hatter,” she wrote. “There really is a place for Opportunistic Optimism. Shoot CEOs who are really finance directors in disguise; find him or her something to do other than dig up the potatoes to see if they are growing; hand boxes of matches to your arsonists; burn the bundles of bureaucracy that are only there to put external auditors off the scent of what is really going on; treat with no mercy all those who think that constructive criticism starts one level below them in the hierarchy; and have referred to a psychiatrist those managers who take two days to decide how much budget to allocate to the Christmas party.”
David Mitchell says her role at Astron was pivotal and transformational. “She was the best appointment I ever made, making me a better person and a better manager. She brought a lot of fun to the business and made an unquantifiable impact on it. I have come across people where when things work well together they work really well, and we did that, we really felt we could get much more done together through combined energy. She brought excitement, enthusiasm and a sense of humour and will be greatly, greatly missed.”
After Astron she took Fonebank through a management buyout to an IPO and sat on the board of two technology start ups and on the board of a number of charitable organisations, heading BPIF Training as part of this.
In 2011 she beat four other candidates to be appointed chief executive of the BPIF, signing a two-year contract which was extended without a murmur. On the one hand she had to balance the books, extricating the federation from its lease on offices in Farringdon Road and finding more affordable premises on the fringe of the City, on the other was the vision of being able to act as a legal support entity, recently achieved, and of renewing the image of the industry.
People development was always at the fore, describing when she started how “If I could implement anything it would be the industry university. We are sitting on one of the most attractive exciting industries that there is out there. It crosses manufacturing, marketing, retail, supply. If we can’t put together the most exciting programme and attract the best undergraduates, we will have missed out.”
The management training programme, backed by £1.1 million of government funding was part of this, as was unstinting advocacy of the industry’s strengths to the banks and within government.
BPIF president Tony Garnish says: “Kathy Woodward was one of the most energetic, enthusiastic and inspirational people I have met in my many years of working in our industry. Leading from the front, she with her team has driven a transformation of the BPIF which is second to none, and we will make sure her legacy continues.”
One of last public duties was at the All Parliamentary Print Group at the House of Lords in July where she discarded a prepared speech about the importance of printed material to a democracy, to talk about her excitement at the UK industry with world leading companies like Glossop Cartons and Ryedale, and said: “I’m seeing a new level of excitement in the industry.”
This is how Print Business started the feature on Kathy Woodward’s takeover as CEO: ‘Twenty years ago a woman as chief executive of the BPIF was simply unthinkable. In two years’ time when Kathy Woodward finishes her stint in charge, it will seem the most natural thing in the world. In between comes two years of determined work. “This is going to be the hardest two years of my life,” she says, sitting in the office she inherits from Michael Johnson, though not sitting behind the desk. “I don’t do sitting behind desks,” she protests when it is time to pose for photos.’ Her tenure had overrun by a year-and-a-half when she died in office.
Kathy Woodward left ICL to join Robert Maxwell’s British Newspaper Printing Corporation, then moving from Fleet Street and switching to web offset printing and leading the cultural shift needed to ensure that this worked without the disruption that other national newspapers faced. Joining the newly independent BPCC, Woodward took on development of a cadre of graduates that had joined the business, among them Simon Biltcliffe, now chief executive of Webmart. “She took me under her wing,” he says. “She was one of the nicest people you could meet. She really was firm but fair and really did care about people, wanting them to achieve their best and has always been there to support you. “She was full of drive and personality and I’m delighted to have known her for so long. We need people like that in the industry.”
On meeting Kathy Woodward, Gareth Ward was immediately impressed by her energy, her knowledge and her dedication to the printing industry. “Her reputation preceded her and I knew she didn’t suffer fools gladly. Everything she had achieved over the years was for the greater good rather than to further her own career,” he says. “While interviewing her in her new office it was clear the trappings at the top were accepted rather than welcomed and she refused to be photographed in the usual chief executive pose of sitting behind her desk.” Ward has interviewed CEOs of graphic arts industry companies and associations the world over. Few have made the impression on him that Woodward did. Her memorial service was one of the few events for which he arrived early.
