Move of the Week: Morrisons promotions reward turnaround duo

A duo of appointments confirmed this week demonstrates the confidence Potts now has in an executive team that was considered flabby and ineffective when he joined in 2015.

Current group finance director Trevor Strain has been promoted to the position of chief operating officer and will be succeeded in February by Michael Gleeson, who is stepping up from his trading director role.

Both men are being rewarded for their parts in delivering Morrisons’ turnaround, which has been built on a return to retail basics and a renewed focus on the customer.

Strain, in particular, should reflect on his pivotal role in the retailer’s recovery with satisfaction, having experienced first-hand the gradual decline under Potts’ predecessor, and having stepped into the CEO’s chair in the brief period between Phillips’ departure and Potts’ arrival.

Potts famously axed half of the Morrisons executive team within a few weeks of his arrival in spring 2015. The fact that both Strain and Gleeson were survivors of the cull show the regard in which they are held.

Back then, Morrisons chair Andrew Higginson made a point of saying Potts’ skills were complementary to those of his finance chief Strain and that opinion has been vindicated in the years since.

The promotions also strengthen the former-Tesco axis at the heart of Morrisons’ senior leadership team. Potts had a long and distinguished career at Tesco and during this period both Strain and Gleeson held a variety of senior finance roles there.

Can’t rest on their laurels

Almost five years into his tenure as CEO, Potts has assembled an extremely competent team and the latest promotions support his view that the supermarket has strong management development plans in place.

That’s not to suggest Potts will be getting carried away. Morrisons recently recorded its first decline in retail like-for-like sales after 14 quarters of consecutive growth. The boss knows as well as anyone that grocery retailers that rest on their laurels quickly get left behind.

Trading has been tougher of late over at Sainsbury’s, which is why the return of Rhian Bartlett will provide a much-needed boost.

Bartlett has assumed the role of director of fresh food having previously worked as business unit director for grocery non-food.

She left in 2014 to become senior director of UK trading at eBay and more recently has worked as commercial director at Screwfix, but the lure of a return to Holborn was ultimately too strong.

Dynamic and incredibly smart, Bartlett is one of the most impressive trading directors around and her return provides some welcome festive cheer for Sainsbury’s boss Mike Coupe as the supermarket enters the most important trading period of the year.