An early morning visit to New Covent Garden Market is normally a red-eyed affair, up at 4am for the chance to catch up with traders and see one of the UK’s largest wholesale sites in action. This time, it’s all about finding out more about the driving force behind the market, just as the redevelopment of the site gears up for the next stage.

Jan Lloyd has got this marathon task off the ground where others before her have failed, even through the most severe recession ever to have hit the UK and up against the kind of scepticism that anyone involved with markets will be all too familiar with.

“As long as you don’t ask me what’s in my CD collection, I find that excruciating,” she says, as soon as I sit down. Okay then, we’ll save that one for later.

Tall and to the point, she is as comfortable going through the ins and outs of the market’s revamp as she is talking through her background as a self-confessed “army brat”, the younger of two who spent her childhood moving every two years, to the likes of Nepal, the West Indies and Mauritius.

Did she even know what a wholesale market was back then? “Not a clue,” she laughs. “I’ve always loved markets though,” she insists. “I find them very vibrant and dynamic places, especially having spent quite a lot of time living in France and seeing the quality of the markets there.”

A proud owner of a somewhat unusual degree in French and Norwegian, Lloyd started her career in sales and marketing before moving into general management in her early 30s, mostly working in the food industry.

At home, she has settled in Teddington with husband Paul and two children Alex, 11, and Ollie, nine, plus Hungarian au pair Marietta, two cats and a load of tropical fish.

“My last role was as managing director of Anglo-French joint venture Yoplait Dairy Crest, working with brands like Petit Filous and Yop and stuff like that - that’s my background,” she says. “When I saw this role, the attraction of it was the change element - it was a business that needed changing, and that’s the bit that I enjoy doing.”

That was nearly five years ago now and Lloyd has never looked back. “I think the highlight for me is that I thought I was coming in to get a business ready to be sold on and it’s turned into a project to actually transform an institution and create something great for the future and that’s a wonderful opportunity,” she says. “Moving from a business where you were in charge of the whole thing and coming here, where there are more than 200 individual businesses who are capable of running their own businesses is a challenge. You can’t interfere and you can’t direct, so you have to try to influence and persuade. And it’s not helped by the fact that with 200 businesses, we struggle sometimes to get engagement from all of them, but we work very hard at that.

“We have a dedicated tenant liaison manager whose sole role is to go around the market and talk to people - the best way is face to face, but that’s not easy.

“There is an element of apathy, partly due to the fact that they have been promised good things so often but they have not been delivered,” she continues. “The belief in the future is somewhat cynical and there are some who don’t think the redevelopment of the market is happening until we turn up and give them the keys. That’s a challenge in itself.”

But Lloyd is not alone in overseeing the market, both day to day and in the long term. In what she calls a “bizarre” twist, some of the main personalities that are driving the progress of the market make up a female contribution not normally seen in traditional market set-ups, including chairman Baroness Brenda Dean, project liaison officer Beth Stephens, communications manager Helen Evans and business development managers Ruth Holbrook and Zeenat Anjari.

Finance director Clive Morton and operations director Bob Marlow make up the team.

“It’s very unusual in what is a very male-dominated industry, but I have to say I have never counted female versus male,” says Lloyd. “I just look for good people, I don’t notice whether they have a skirt on or not - it’s just the way things have happened here.”

Together, the forward-thinking line-up has led change and made significant progress in the much-anticipated redevelopment of the market. So what is the latest on the project? According to Lloyd, they are getting “into the thick of it”.

“Back in July, we announced the shortlist of six bidders who will go forward in the process,” she explains. “At the moment, we are preparing for the next stage in the early autumn, which will take us up until Christmas, at which point we will select three. We are hoping to have identified our preferred partner by next summer.

“The important thing is for us to get it right and make sure that the market that is delivered at the end of it is fit for purpose and will secure the future of the market for the next 35 years. If it takes us a bit longer to do that, then so be it.

“First, second and third priority is the market itself and making sure the units that we provide for our tenants function properly, that logistically customers can get in and around the market, all of that. However, we think that if NCGM is going to play the role that we believe it should in London’s food industry, there is an opportunity to do more than just provide buildings for wholesalers and distributors.

“There is a lot of food-related activity happening now, there is a lot of interest in hosting events on the market and we believe that we can support this type of activity and create the nucleus of a new food centre for the capital. I think wholesale markets have a role to play over and above just being the landlord - we call it the market-plus; we see our role as helping that plus to develop.

“We will have good facilities that will meet the standards of today and in the future. This should secure its role within the food supply chin in the capital because I think the role of NCGM is to provide the alternative supply chain, the route to market that is not served by the major players. I think that is the role of the market going forward.

“But the one thing I can guarantee is that we won’t be able to please everybody all of the time; that’s a given and that’s part of our lot,” she admits. “There are lessons to be learnt from other developments - Western International is one of the few markets that has redeveloped in recent years in the UK, for example. We are very fortunate to have Bob Marlow as our operations director, who was at Western when it was being implemented. He knows what went well and what didn’t; he will be invaluable as we actually go through the detail to make sure we learn from his lessons. We will make mistakes, but hopefully not the same ones.”

Too true, especially when significant change and more than 200 no doubt strong-willed businesses are involved.

But Lloyd is clear about her ambitions for the market that she and her team have worked hard to take forward. The plans for the site will be finalised within the next 18 months and beyond then, traders will be able to see the physical fruits of the project once construction gets underway.

“The experience of the last five years is that once you have had any involvement with a market, it tends to get under your skin,” she says. “I don’t know how long I’ll continue here at NCGM, but I am committed to making sure that this project is a success. I want to be able to go past on the train and say, ‘I did that’.”

CGMA’S CHIEF EXECUTIVE TALKS MUSIC AND COFFEE

Sorry Jan, we had to ask - what is in your CD collection?

A very eclectic mix of pop, classical, jazz, country and folk, probably slightly over-represented in the choral section - I have always liked to sing in a choir, particularly for the classic choral works.

If you were on a desert island, what three things would you take with you?

An electronic book with direct downloads from the internet - I read a huge amount - as well as an inexhaustible supply of fresh coffee (I am an addict) and photographs of my family; hopefully, those ones from Harry Potter that move and wave.

Describe yourself in three words.

Dynamic, firm but fair and articulate (okay, we’ll give her five).

If you were a fruit or vegetable, what would you be and why?

A potato - durable, satisfying and very versatile!