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Chris Townsend joined TFL as Group Marketing Director in April 2003, managing a team of 600 employees. He is responsible for all Marketing Strategy, Marketing Communications, Market Research and Customer Service across the TFL Group. This includes the London Underground, London Bus Network, Docklands Light Railway, Croydon Tram, River Boats, Taxi’s, Congestion Charge and Road Safety. The Marketing Communications responsibility includes all TV, radio, press, poster and cinema advertising. He is also responsible for the Travel Information Call Centre and the network of Travel Information Centres across London.
Chris has Group responsibility for the Marketing and Customer Service for Oyster. He was responsible for the launch of Oyster in June 2003 and Oyster currently has 3.25m customers, accounting for approximately 50% of journeys on the TfL system.
Chris has responsibility for the TfL Journey Planner and all TfL websites which receive approximately 40m users per month.
Before joining TFL, Chris spent the previous 12 years in the Digital Television Industry in Marketing Director and senior Director roles at the BBC (1990-1992), BSkyB (1992-1998) and most recently Telewest (1999-2003). As Marketing Director at BSkyB, Chris initiated the Customer Recruitment & Management programme growing the customer base from 250k to 3.5 million. He developed the BSkyB Digital Marketing Strategy and was responsible for the development and launch of the Sky Electronic Programme Guide and Sky Interactive. At Telewest, Chris initiated and managed the UK InteractiveTV and ECommerce business across the Digital TV and Broadband PC cable network which included negotiating and completing over 200 third party content agreements.
Before joining the BBC, Chris was Joint Managing Director of the Advertising and Direct Marketing Agency, DMB&B Direct. His responsibilities included the account management of The English Tourist Board advertising account. Chris has a BSc.Hons in Geography (Newcastle University) and an MSc.Hons in Marketing Management (Nottingham University). He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, and Associate Fellow of Templeton College, Oxford University.
Chris is a sports enthusiast and includes Yoga and Road Cycling in his weekly schedule of activities. He lives in Wimbledon and is married with two sons aged 17 and 16.
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