Neil Gillis, who once stripped off to motivate staff, finds himself in the spotlight once again as chief executive of Blacks. He tells Jennifer Creevy about his vision for the outdoor retailer

Blacks Leisure chief executive Neil Gillis is no stranger to exposure. In his previous role as boss of health club group Esporta, he presented to 1,000 staff at an annual conference naked. Gillis was not using the conference as a group therapy session to confess a love of naturism, but rather to get the message across that staff should not be left exposed by mystery shoppers.

Unconventional perhaps, but Gillis claims the stunt did the trick. And now he’s jumped ship to Blacks, he is back in the spotlight. Not only does he have to answer to shareholders – the largest of which is Sports Direct boss Mike Ashley – but he is also under the watchful eye of staff and shoppers.

“With retail, everything is visible,” says Gillis. “Our customers have opinions on everything we do, as do the shareholders. Staff have almost been beaten up over the past couple of years because of the company’s dire performance and everything they read in the papers is dispiriting. I’m looking forward to the day when the words ‘troubled’ and ‘Blacks’ are not used together in the same sentence.”

Gillis, who joined in November last year, has already gone some way to erasing that word “troubled”. He is expected to report£3 million cost savings at its full-year results in May and has opened a new-format store for each of the Blacks, Millets and Freespirit brands. And figures from the first Blacks new-format store, in London’s Kensington, are encouraging. The store is trading 25 per cent ahead of the rest of the chain and the average transaction has increased from£41 to£71.

Gillis admits he had a head start. He fronted a bid for Blacks last March with the backing of a consortium led by Archie Norman’s Aurigo Management vehicle, but was rebuffed because shareholders saw the potential in the business.

“I had already been through the business and knew what needed to happen, so when I joined it was easy to hit the ground running,” he says.

Gillis called for the retailer to be modernised and for its Blacks and Millets chains to be differentiated. Blacks will be pitched at the fashionable, high-quality outdoor market and Millets will concentrate on the heavy-duty expert end.

The Blacks new-format store in Kensington was the first to change. Gone are the jam-packed aisles displaying numerous styles of dark-coloured jackets, which Gillis describes as looking like “retail in the Soviet Union”.

Blacks carried out research with its largest suppliers, including North Face and Berghaus, to find out what its customers used the products for. It found that 80 per cent of purchases were fashion-oriented. “We didn’t realise we were a fashion brand,” he says . “So we had to redress the balance.”

As a result, the store is now well-lit and merchandised by brand, rather than product. Around 15 per cent of store stock was cut to give more space to browse and mannequins were introduced.

“The new format allows us to show our shoppers whole outfits, so they can put pieces together. Showcasing outfits is obviously nothing new to a fashion retailer, but it is for us,” says Gillis.

He concedes that balancing fashion and performance will be a challenge. “Shoppers come to us because of the quality of our products and the expertise of our staff,” he says. “So while we want to modernise the environment and style mannequins with fashionable products, we need to make sure we are still considered the outdoor expert.”

Being flexible is key to the new-format stores. Each brand is showcased on what Gillis calls a “brand pod” – a display unit on wheels – which can be moved around the store to suit different seasons or brands. Each store will also have two window displays designed to reflect the weather outside.

“We need to be able to adapt much more quickly to the trends and weather,” says Gillis. “Last April, we had fleeces in the window when it was hot and sunny and shorts when it started to rain, which just didn’t work.”

Gillis is confident the chain is on track and is looking forward to further growth. “After we roll out the new format and get the business in shape, I will start looking at buying well-respected independent outdoor chains to grow the group’s market share,” he says.

And he’s well-versed in this practice, having bought up small, family-owned businesses when he was at pub and brewery operator Greene King. Let’s just hope he doesn’t feel the need to do it naked.

Active engagement
Age: 43
Lives: Suffolk
Family: married, with two children, aged six and eight
Interests: owns his own vineyard

CAREER HISTORY
 November 2007-present: chief executive, Blacks
2003-07: chief executive, Esporta Health Clubs
2000-03: managing director, Greene King
1998-2000: managing director, Linda McCartney
1990-98: marketing director, Cadbury Typhoo
1988-90: marketing manager, Rank Hovis McDougall

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