Richard Bowker’s in-tray is so full of “high priority” tasks that yesterday’s takeover offer by FirstGroup must have seemed an unwelcome distraction.

The chief executive of National Express is preoccupied with the rail company’s £1.2 billion debt mountain, for which he has secured a six-month breather from lenders. Then there is the £1.4 billion that it must pay the Government to maintain the East Coast Main Line franchise until 2015.

This sum was agreed before the recession and based on projected passenger revenue growth of 9 to 10 per cent a year. In the three months to March, revenue growth was only 0.3 per cent. The Government is determined not to negotiate the terms of this agreement, but Mr Bowker’s previous experience means that he is better placed than most to try. The Lancashire-born chartered management accountant has worked in the rail industry for 20 years and has sat on both sides of the public-private fence.

From 2001 to 2004, he was chairman and chief executive of the Strategic Rail Authority, the government body that awards franchises and sets service targets. Here, the feather in his cap was the multibillion-pound West Coast Main Line route modernisation and the scrapping of slam-doors on commuter trains.

He began his career at London Underground as a graduate, where he specialised in procurement and Public Private Partnerships and was responsible for securing new trains for the Northern Line.

At 31, he became group commercial director of Virgin Group and co-chairman of Virgin Rail after being spotted by Sir Richard Branson. It is perhaps part of the Virgin boss’s legacy that, like his former mentor, Mr Bowker rarely wears a tie.

In August 2005, he was appointed chief executive of Partnerships for Schools, a government body responsible for delivering a £40 billion Building Schools for the Future investment programme.

Mr Bowker, 42, was appointed a CBE in the New Year’s Honours List of 2005 for services to the rail industry, a year before he joined National Express as chief executive. The day he won the East Coast Main Line franchise in August 2007, his wife Madeleine gave birth to his second son.

Mr Bowker, a Blackburn Rovers supporter, is also a director of British Waterways. He lives with his wife and two children in Staffordshire and enjoys canal boating and hillwalking.