Lombard, who has been managing the express division of Dutch mail company TNT since 2004 in the shadow of her U2-loving boss Peter Bakker, will lead a separate company if shareholders approve a listing.
TNT issued a profit warning at its international delivery unit, Express, on April 8 after lingering integration issues at businesses it bought in Brazil hit its operating performance, leading to a loss of clients in a key emerging market.
In a presentation to analysts in Londo, Lombard, a 52-year-old French mother of two, acknowledged she should have seen and tackled problems in Brazil earlier but gave assurances she would get on top of them.
"She kind of admitted that she made a mistake, which is good. She made herself personally committed. In my view her role as CEO is on the hook if she does not fix this," said Rabobank analyst Philip Scholte.
Lombard, who in an interview to an internal TNT magazine in 2005 said she was inspired by ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, who strove for freedom from pain and worry, also sounded confident on Tuesday when she reflected on her work.
"I remember in 2004 when I took this job, Express was for sale ... It was valued at about 1.5 billion euros. After seven years, we quadrupled the value and we hope to do more. So at the end of the day, that's not so bad," she said.
Compared with Bakker, Lombard has given few media interviews. She has championed the role of women, arguing businesses should give mothers more opportunities to develop their careers and voicing concern at how women are often depicted in popular culture.
"I was coming from the United States and I came back to France, and I saw all these ads, you know, showing women naked to sell yoghurt. I'm sorry, I'm against that," Lombard told the Financial Times in 2007.
Delivering the Goods
Lombard, whose total remuneration as TNT Express chief in 2010 was 1.85 million euros, the second highest-paid TNT executive after Bakker, who got 16 percent more, has come under scrutiny following the company's lacklustre performance.
On her watch, operating margins grew steadily in Express between 2004 and 2006, hitting a high of close to 10 percent, but collapsed to 3.2 percent by 2009 as acquisitions, restructuring and the financial crisis crimped profitability.
Her background gives hints at her strengths and weaknesses as a top manager. She is an investment banker by trade, having spent 10 years between Paris, Lyon and New York managing company accounts and advising on corporate finance and M&A.
She joined the transport services industry in 1993, when she became chief financial officer of French company Jet Services, a company acquired by TNT in 1999. She then became managing director of TNT's French operations.
Her major management break came in 2003 when the former managing director of Express, Alan Jones, left. As Jones recalls, there was plenty of competition for his job, but Lombard's work ethic and sector insight gave her an edge.
"At the time of succession, there were eight talented managing directors at Express who had all improved the profitability of their units," Jones told Reuters in a telephone interview.
"There was very little in it in terms of the difference in numbers between them, but I think she had done just a little bit better to stand out," he said.
Lombard's investment banking skills may have served her well in spotting acquisition targets across the world in high-growth countries such as China and Brazil, yet her handling of the execution of acquisitions has been criticised of late, as the profit warning spurred by Brazil weighed heavily on TNT's stock.
Exacerbating this have been much more confident noises coming from TNT rivals UPS , FedEx and Deutsche Post when it comes to dealing with the impact of higher fuel prices.
In 2005 Lombard was awarded t
