BERNARD AUTON is to become director general of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport International.

He takes over from Cyril Bleasdale, managing director of Railnews and former British Rail InterCity director, who has served as director general since 1999.

Mr Auton, a high profile logistics consultant closely involved with CILT since 2002, has in recent years specialised in international humanitarian emergency relief logistics.

He formed the Institute’s Humanitarian Emergency Logistics Professionals Forum, working with a number of agencies including Red Cross, Save the Children, Transaid, RedR and United Nations.

Mr Auton worked in various roles with Caterpillar in Europe and North America from 1987 and returned to the UK as general manager, materials handling, for Finning (UK) Ltd. 

He joined Unipart Logistics as business development and marketing manager in 1999, and four years later joined Swiss supply chain consultancy Inova before starting his own consultancy business in 2007.

Graeme McFaull, chief executive of Wincanton, has been nominated as president elect of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, and will take over from Richard Brown as president in May.

A Fellow of the Institute and a vice-president since 2003, Mr McFaull also sits on the board of Bestlog, an EU-funded initiative to identify and proliferate best practice in the European logistics sector.

He joined Wincanton in 1994 as finance director of the retail division and subsequently took over as managing director. He was promoted to chief executive four years ago.

Peter Hendy, London’s commissioner for transport for the past three years, has been appointed a vice-president of the Institute, following the appointment of transport consultant Jim Steer FCILT also as a vice-president.