Marc Bolland is a good choice for the toughest job in retail

Standing on a balcony overlooking Leicester Square just two weeks ago, Marc Bolland kept as straight a face as he could when asked if he’d want the top job at Marks & Spencer. “I’m very happy at Morrisons,” he said in his distinctive Dutch burr, before turning the conversation to his beloved Leeds United’s promotion challenge.

To be fair he couldn’t really have said much else, but the fact that we were there at all said something about the man. Morrisons had sponsored the premiere of Disney’s A Christmas Carol, an imaginative marketing ploy that would have been unthinkable just two years ago.

But then the former Heineken man is nothing if not a bold and imaginative transformer of businesses. Taking Morrisons from the train-wreck of the Safeway takeover and turning it around in just three years has been one of the great retail achievements of recent years.

Bolland is an excellent choice for Marks & Spencer. Charming and debonair but with a real steel behind the exterior, he could almost be a Dutch version of Sir Stuart Rose, and while he might miss Elland Road, he will be much more at home in London than in Bradford.

Crucially he has succeeded in turning around a brand with masses of history while retaining and building on the heritage of the brand. It’s a skill that will be crucial at M&S, and after Sir Ken, working with Rose as chairman should be a piece of cake.

The big question that will be asked is about his experience in general merchandise. Put simply, he doesn’t have any, and that matters when you’re taking over the UK’s biggest clothing retailer.

But don’t forget he didn’t have any retail experience either when he came into Morrisons, and that didn’t do him any harm. He will have Kate Bostock and of course Rose himself alongside him, but Bolland will be an agent of change, an energiser who will transform a retailer that has lost focus and become distracted from its core purpose since Rose’s initial blast of success came juddering to a halt.

His big job will be to define what M&S stands for in the second decade of the 21st century. It has become a schizophrenic business, excessively premium in food, a jumbled mix from aspirational to value in food. There is massive capital in the brand, but it needs to be made relevant for today’s shopper.

A massive job lies ahead, and if it goes wrong the comparisons with Luc Vandevelde, the only previous overseas chief executive, will be inevitable. But he’s as good a choice as anyone for retail’s toughest job.