New Year’s Honour for GMCA Chief Executive

Chief Executive of Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) and Interim Chair of Stockport MDC, Eamonn Boylan, is among those being recognised with an OBE in the King’s New Year’s Honours list for 2024.

Eamonn Boylan is being honoured for services to local government, with a career spanning 42 years in public service, including at local authorities across the North, including as Chief Executive of Stockport Council from 2010, before taking on the role of Chief Executive of GMCA in 2017. While at Stockport, Eamonn led the Council’s £1 billion programme of investment in infrastructure and town centre regeneration, and took on the position of Interim Chair of Stockport MDC, overseeing the town centre’s ongoing redevelopment in 2023.

Other previous roles include Deputy Chief Executive of both the Homes and Communities Agency (responsible for all national regeneration programmes) and Manchester City Council, where he led the Regeneration Division and helped shape strategic regeneration programmes across the city.

As the Chief Executive of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Eamonn chairs the Greater Manchester Wider Leadership Team, and has responsibility for policy and strategy, and a range of Greater Manchester-wide services including Fire and Rescue, Waste and Disposal, Transport, Economic Development, and Planning. He is also jointly accountable for the Greater Manchester Strategic Plan for the transformation of health and social care. Since November 2018, Eamonn has also undertaken the role of Chief Executive at Transport for Greater Manchester.

Eamonn Boylan announced his intentions to retire and step down from GMCA following the 2024 local and mayoral elections in May.

Eamonn Boylan OBE said:

“This is an honour that I share with the brilliant people I’ve worked alongside here in Greater Manchester and throughout my time in local government.

“When I joined the GMCA in 2017 I could not have foreseen the challenges that we would face, but it has been the privilege of my career to see the strength and the spirit of this city-region prevail at every turn. This past year in particular, with the signing of Greater Manchester’s Trailblazer devolution deal, has demonstrated just how relentlessly this place is working to transform public services for the better, and deliver for people at every stage of life.

“As I look ahead to my last few months at the GMCA and TfGM, I will take immense pride in all that we have achieved here. Those achievements are the foundations of this honour, for which I am sincerely grateful.”

Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham said:

“Eamonn has been a towering figure in local government throughout his career, and nowhere more so than in Greater Manchester.

“In the time I’ve worked with him at the GMCA he has been a steadfast support to me, sharing his peerless insight into how our city-region works – and how much stronger it is when it speaks with one clear, unified voice. From spearheading our devolution deal to delivering the biggest transformation of public transport since the 1980s, his impact on this place simply cannot be overstated.

“Greater Manchester has come a long way in the last decade, and Eamonn has made a major contribution to that progress. We are proud that this has been recognised, but I know that he would be the first to say that it is also a recognition of his outstanding team at all levels of the GMCA.”