The online fashion goliath has hired retail newcomer Robert Birge, most recently chief marketing officer at Blink Healthcare, for the role.

It is a new post for Asos and for the UK retail industry more generally. As Peel Hunt analyst John Stevenson observes: “If you asked me to name all the businesses that have a chief growth officer I could name Asos, and that would be it.”

So what does a chief growth officer do exactly? And, given that growth was surely something Asos was focused on already, why does it need one now?

There is a level of ambiguity about what Birge’s role will entail and how it will fit into Asos’ existing structure.

MBS Group’s managing partner Moira Benigson says: “A chief growth officer is usually a staple in B2B organisations more than a B2C role. It generally covers business development, sales, marketing and product, so it will be interesting to see how they knit that remit into a traditional buying and merchandising led business.”