Brough, previously a non-executive director of the MUA for 10 years, has held roles in the past including chief executive of Opus Trust Marketing and managing director of Bakergoodchild.

He also launched a consultancy business, Brough Consulting, in 2018, where he has since worked across the industry in several project, advisory, and mentoring roles.

Brough took over in the role at the MUA on 1 April, after previous chair Ian Paterson – a consultant in the industry – resigned as chair as he looks towards retirement.

Brough said the chair position will take up around a couple of days a month, so he will therefore be continuing with his other business commitments.

The MUA’s current membership includes financial services companies – banks, insurance, and building societies, as well as some of the large mail producers and businesses providing mail management and production systems. 

It has good connections with Royal Mail, and within the independent mail operator community, more generally. It also maintains close contacts with all relevant government, regulatory and consumer representative organisations, including Ofcom, The Department for Business and Trade, and Citizens Advice.

The MUA has 15 members currently and one of Brough’s goals is to increase the not-for-profit association’s membership.

He told Printweek that the Ofcom USO consultation is currently of “great interest” to its membership, and that it meets with Ofcom, Royal Mail, and the access providers regularly.

“Our goal really is to represent our membership in all matters postal. In the past, we were involved in things like Mailmark and the introduction of that with Royal Mail.

“[What’s important is] the ability to influence where the industry is going and enable our members to have their say directly with organisations such as, primarily Ofcom and Royal Mail, because as a business you don't really get to sit in the same room as representatives from Ofcom very much, or senior management in Royal Mail.

“So this gives our members the opportunity to sit face to face with these people, put across their views, and lobby them in some ways to ensure that their views are understood.”

He added: “I think the challenges are understanding how the delivery times are going to be affected with the proposed new delivery regime of alternate day delivery and no deliveries on Saturdays. And I guess that’s the concern in the finance sector, who need to know when their letters are going to land.

“It’s about putting our views across so that Royal Mail understand the challenges our members are now going to face.”

The MUA meets six times a year in Central London and at its next meeting, on 8 May, there will be two guest speakers; Ricky McAulay, UK operations director at Royal Mail Group, and Matt Hancock, managing director at address data management company BBS and previously Secretary of State for Health and Social Care from 2018 to 2021, during the peak of the Covid pandemic.