In the news: UPDATED Co-operative Group boss Euan Sutherland profiled

It is still unclear whether Sutherland has departed The Co-op but in his resignation letter Sutherland called the organisation “ungovernable” and it has been reported he is “demoralised and fed up”. It is uncharacteristic of the highly-regarded, likeable boss that came from Kingfisher last year where he was chief operating officer.

Sutherland’s dramatic “back me or sack me” letter came days after plans to increase management salaries were leaked to the media and a fortnight after the BBC reported leaked financials revealing the group was set to generate losses of more than £2bn, to be announced on March 26. Plans to sell the pharmacy business and its farms, potentially resulting in redundancies of up to 5,000 people by 2017, were also leaked.

And now it looks as though Sutherland has had enough.

It was clear his patience was wearing when on Sunday he posted a message on the Co-op’s Facebook page, responding to the leaked reports. He said: “We seem to have an individual, or individuals, determined to undermine me personally. We appear to have disaffected people who are determined to make life difficult and embarrassing for The Co-operative at a time when what we need most are professionalism and loyalty to the business.”

Many would say his predecessor Peter Marks handed him a poisoned chalice. Sutherland succeeded Marks in May 2013, and it is thought the 6ft 6” Scot was unaware of the scale of the banking crisis that was about to unravel at the Co-op Group. He spent his first six weeks at the head of the £13bn business focusing entirely on its struggling banking division, which needed to plug a £1.5bn gap in its finances.

Sutherland, who had been a non-executive director of the Co-op for two years before taking the top job, also restructured to bring the food, pharmacy and online businesses into one retail division and he bolstered the top team, bringing well regarded former Morrisons executive Richard Pennycook in as interim finance director.

In November the company then hit the headlines after Co-op Bank chairman Paul Flowers was filmed buying illegal drugs. The numerous exposés in the papers triggered a root and branch review of the Group.

Sutherland’s Co-op rollercoaster ride is a far cry from his Kingfisher years. He was being groomed to take over from Kingfisher boss Ian Cheshire and had been a key member of the retail board that revitalised the fortunes of the DIY giant since Cheshire took the helm in 2008.

Sutherland was initially responsible for the domestic business, as chief executive of Kingfisher UK & Ireland, and oversaw a rise in UK and Ireland profits from a low of £132m to £271m in the last financial year.

When he accepted the job Sutherland will have been aware that a challenge lay ahead, but he could not have foreseen the scale of the challenge that has since emerged.