People moves: Andy Murray joins Asda from WalMart and all the February moves

Move of the month

…is Andy Murray’s appointment as Asda’s new chief customer officer.

The capture of Murray from parent company WalMart has the makings of a masterstroke by Andy Clarke at a time when struggling Asda badly needs an expert strategist with an innate understanding of retail trends.

With a background steeped in brand strategy and shopper marketing – notably as founder and former chief executive of Saatchi & Saatchi X – Murray seems the ideal person to keep Asda one step ahead of its customers, a task that is central to the grocer’s Project Renewal strategy.

Murray will bring a different skill set to the role than his predecessor Barry Williams who has built a well-earned reputation as an outstanding trader and has been the linchpin of Asda’s food division for much of the past decade.

Williams seems certain to resurface in a high-profile trading role making this feel like a good move for all parties.

 Switching codes

…is Pierre Woreczek, McDonald’s highly regarded chief strategy, customer and digital officer, who has joined the Véronique Laury revolution at Kingfisher in the newly created role of chief customer officer.

Frenchman Woreczek brings with him a strong track record of designing and delivering new customer experiences, first at Cadbury France and for the past 17 years at McDonald’s, and will be a key lieutenant as Laury develops her ‘one’ Kingfisher plan.

Woreczek’s move marks the second significant capture of a McDonald’s executive by a UK retailer in the past year following Jill McDonald’s arrival at Halfords, a fact that speaks volumes for the restaurant chain’s success in consistently evolving its brand and service proposition to meet the demands of its customers.

All change at

…Ribble Cycles, the private equity-backed cycling specialist, which has named former Asda and Shop Direct director Jon Owen as its new chief executive and drafted in ecommerce expert Matthew Lawson as chief digital officer.

Owen’s move demonstrates the growing ability of smaller players such as Ribble to lure high-calibre talent away from their larger peers, particularly when a chief executive role is up for grabs.

The opportunity to spearhead Ribble’s expansion drive under majority shareholder True Capital will surely have appealed to Owen whose CV includes a spell as Asda’s marketing director.

Lawson, meanwhile, has successful spells at Ao.com and more recently Loveholiday.com to his name.

 Promotion of the month

…for Josie Roscop who becomes customer director at River Island having previously held the position of marketing director.

Roscop, who began her life in fashion as a model and previously helped develop Sainsbury’s Tu brand, will be responsible for building River Island’s customer relationships as well as heading up PR, VIP services and the graphics team.

Look out for further changes at the retailer in the months ahead as it develops its customer engagement strategy.

Tony’s trends

Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed a trend among this month’s biggest movers, the vast majority of whom have the word ‘customer’ somewhere within their new job title.

It can be hard to pin down the specific remit of a customer director, which varies from one retailer to the next and can include responsibility for anything from marketing and trading to communications and service; but their popularity shows that, rather than simply repeating the maxim that the customer is king, retailers are now embedding this truism within their organisational structures.

It makes sense. The growth of online retailing means a larger pool of businesses are competing for the same shopper spend.

“When presented with such an embarrassment of choice, retailers can no longer take customers’ repeat business for granted” 

Tony Gregg

When presented with such an embarrassment of choice, retailers can no longer take customers’ repeat business for granted.

In this context, fulfilling the needs of your existing customer base across multiple channels becomes arguably even more important that winning new business.

From an organisational perspective, this has required retailers to create new roles that align with the need to stay one step ahead of shoppers.

‘Customer director’, ‘chief customer officer’, ‘director of customer insight’, call the job what you will. The role itself is here to stay.

People moves in February 2016 – the list in full