Chief executive, Primark
The no-nonsense Primark boss made the right choice when he left the impending carnage at New Look to take charge at Primark. On the face of it the challenge facing Paul Marchant - of taking over from fashion legend Arthur Ryan - was much greater than that ahead of Carl McPhail, who beat him to the New Look job, but while McPhail is gone, Marchant has eased into the Primark role.
While Marchant keeps the low profile expected of Primark’s management, the company has a huge influence over UK retail and continues to shift enormous volumes of fast-fashion product. But while it remains a terrifying force to its rivals, it’s not had life all its own way. Rising input costs have put pressure on margins and made price rises inevitable.
However, Primark has maintained it won’t give up price leadership even if that’s at the expense of sacrificing margins. But that’s much worse news for its rivals than for Primark itself, as no other business in the fast fashion space has the muscle that Primark has built.
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