In his new role, Higson will lead the senior management team responsible for overseeing the collection, sorting and delivery of more than 80m letters annually, by around 170,000 Royal Mail workers.
He will report directly to Adam Crozier, chief executive of Royal Mail.
Higson joins Royal Mail from BPB, a company which specialises in providing building materials for the construction trade. He held board level responsibility at BPB and had overseen the company's operational performance and strategy implementation since 1996.
Prior to joining BPB, he was chief executive of the UK coatings division at textiles company Courtalds, and has held a number of consultancy roles at HJ Heinz and British Aerospace.
Crozier said: "[Higson] is bringing with him a highly impressive track record at BPB where he played a key leadership role in boosting the focus on customers and achieving world class operational capability that together helped deliver sustained profit growth.
"Mark joins Royal Mail as the business steps up its drive to transform its operations to achieve the modernisation essential to enabling the company to compete successfully in the tough, open communications market."