Profile: Kate Barrett, store manager, Sainsbury's

The career of Kate Barrett, overall Rising Star of the Year at last year’s Skillsmart Retail Rising Star Awards, has taken a dramatic turn since she won the accolade in September.

Barrett scooped the prize, run in association with Retail Week, as a Sainsbury’s store support manager based at its head office in Holborn, but 11 months on she has taken up an entirely new challenge – store manager at the grocer’s Trinity Street shop in Bolton.

“It has been an absolute whirlwind,” says Barrett. The 30 year old makes no understatement in describing the first month of her new role managing the 50,000 sq ft store that employs 300 staff.

It is a far cry away from her desk job at HQ, where she was working in the space and formats division.

Barrett says winning the award has altered the course of her career. “It put a lot more focus on me and I felt I needed to progress to the next level. In retail, you have to prove yourself on the shopfloor by taking charge of the day-to-day running of a store,” she says.

Barrett has spent the month since starting her new role acclimatising to the hustle and bustle of her new environment.

She says the size of the shop reflects the trust placed in her to manage a “challenging” large store, which includes a petrol station, pharmacy and delivery of online orders.

“The sheer scale of things that you have to deal with as a store manager is incredible. Every day is a new adventure,” Barrett explains. “It’s a great position – as store manager your colleagues and customers look up to you and expect you to be the oracle to guide them.”

That trust has been earned during a six-year career at Sainsbury’s, following an undergraduate biology degree at Leeds University. 

“I wasn’t looking for a career in retail but I worked in four stores as part of the graduate scheme, became a deputy manager and then my regional manager headhunted me to come down to Holborn,” says Barrett.

What was supposed to be a six-month secondment led to five years in the capital, which Barrett describes as “invaluable”.

“It is a completely different pace of life in London but it gave me a lot. My understanding and the contacts I’ve made have given me so much,” says Barrett.

Since winning the award, Barrett has been passing her skills on to others. She has given a speech on the benefits of gaining a breadth of experience to the Oxford Summer School and will be in charge of a new intake of operations graduates who start in September.

There are a number of key people at Sainsbury’s who Barrett cites as inspirational, including general merchandise managing director Roger Burnley, retail director Helen Buck, central retail director Jon Hartland and managing director for the North David Furness.

“I’m very proud to work for Sainsbury’s,” Barrett says. “It is a fantastic company that does the right thing for customers.”

So what are Barrett’s ambitions? In the short term, she wants to stay at the Bolton store for 18 months to two years, optimising its floor space in terms of sales before taking on a bigger store.

“Ultimately there are a lot of opportunities for Sainsbury’s in the North so it would be good to take up a regional role,” she says.

Whatever Barrett’s ultimate position at Sainsbury’s may be, it’s clear she has laid the foundation for a long and fruitful career in retail.