Marks & Spencer has appointed a retail industry veteran to bolster its turnaround attempts.
Katie Bickerstaffe will take on the role of Chief Strategy and Transformation Director on 27 April. She is currently a Non-Executive Director of the company. In her new position, she will work four days per week and will serve on the M&S board and operating committee.
Bickerstaffe will be accountable for developing and overseeing the delivery of the retailer’s “strategic transformation” programmes, which aim to restore sales and profit growth after several years of decline.
She replaces Melanie Smith, the previous Strategy Director, who last year was appointed CEO of Ocado Retail – the joint venture between the Ocado Group and M&S.
Bickerstaffe is a former Executive Chair of SSE Energy Services. Until April 2018, she was Chief Executive of the UK & Ireland division of Dixons Carphone where she worked from 2008. Before that, she held roles with a range of food retail and consumer companies including Kwik Save, PepsiCo, Unilever, Dyson and Somerfield (where she was Retail MD).
The group’s CEO Steve Rowe commented: “Katie has been a great help to me and the wider management team in her role as a non-executive director and I am delighted that she will now be part of the executive team. Her experience in leading roles at UK food and non-food retailers and track record of delivering large-scale change will be invaluable as we accelerate our transformation.”
Bickerstaffe added: “Marks & Spencer is a fantastic brand with huge potential. I’m really looking forward to working with the management team to step-up the pace of the transformation.”
Following the appointment, some observers suggested that Bickerstaffe was now a prime candidate to succeed Rowe and become M&S’s first female boss. “Let’s be honest – a chief strategy and transformation officer is what the CEO’s day job is,” one former M&S director told Reuters.
“I’m sure this is as overt as Archie can be in signposting what must be coming.”
NAM Implications:
- Best for NAMs to explore the eventual CEO option…
- …and given the supplier-retailer mix of Katie Bickerstaffe’s background…
- Proactive NAMs that relate to the M&S turnaround strategy should be in with a chance.
