Greenbury, who started in the newly created role today (2 November), is currently chief executive of Parcel2Go.com.

Greenbury has held various senior roles within companies including Security Despatch, Mailsource UK, Secure Mail Services and DX Group. He is also a board adviser at The Snugg.com and chairman of both Intelligent Office UK and Barmy Army.

Whistl chief executive Nick Wells said: “James will make a valuable contribution to the development of the company as we enter the exciting phase of our development as a management-led company.”

Greenbury added: “In my experience management-owned businesses are able to better serve their customers, thereby creating value for all involved.”

Alongside the other directors, Greenbury’s role will be to look at the long-term development and growth of Whistl. The main focus will be on the company’s core divisions: downstream access (DSA), door-drop media, packets and parcels, and logistics.

The main conditions of the MBO were provisionally agreed between Whistl's managers and owner PostNL in the summer following a review of the Dutch delivery firm’s activities.

The businesses concluded that it was crucial to create clear guidance for the relevant Whistl stakeholders about its future strategic direction after the suspension and subsequent cessation of Whistl’s end-to-end (E2E) delivery service.

The Whistl management team, led by chief executive Nick Wells, have taken a controlling stake in the company with PostNL retaining a 17.5% minority shareholding.

Marlow, Buckinghamshire-headquartered Whistl had been a wholly owned subsidiary of PostNL since 2011. It was previously called TNT Post UK, prior to a rebrand in September 2014, and had been a subsidiary of TNT Group until 2011.

The company, the UK’s second-largest postal operator, has a turnover of £600m. Its DSA business has more than 56% market share in the UK, handling around 3.8 billion items of mail per year.