Kiddicare boss Chris Yates is no stranger to turning around a struggling retailer but his new role is unlikely to be child’s play.

New Kiddicare boss Chris Yates

The former Jessops retail director has been tasked with transforming the struggling maternity specialist after investment firm Endless bought it for £2m on Monday.

Yates is an experienced retailer. He started his career at Sainsbury’s where he joined the graduate programme and stayed for 22 years, working his way up as a regional business manager. He has also worked at gym chain Esporta and Phones 4U.

One industry source described Yates as an extrovert and workaholic who works 70-80 hours a week. “One of his strengths is that he’s a good leader. But he can drive people nuts - he can be very intense. He expects things to be done quickly and expects for people to fit that mould.”

But most recently, he has been Down Under, where he took the helm at Australian fashion retailer Lovisa. It is thought that he grew profit considerably during his one-year tenure at the retailer, thanks to changes to the supply chain, international expansion and rationalising the range.

Headhunter Maarten Jonckers, managing director of Nicholas Alexander Executive Search tweeted upon reading Retail Week’s story on Yates’ appointment at Kiddicare: “Yates did a phenomenal ‘turn around and grow’ job at Lovisa.”

Jonckers added that Yates was an “inspiring leader” and a “good nuts and bolts retailer”.

And Yates played a strategic role at Jessops, which underwent a revamp under boss Trevor Moore before it fell into administration in 2013.

Former Jessops chairman David Adams told Retail Week: “I’m a big fan of Chris. He’s enthusiastic and a really good operator.

“He’s very involved in strategy. He had a role in setting the path of Jessops.”

Adams believes that he has refined his skills even further in his Australian role, and that should help at Kiddicare.

“He really understands the consumer,” Adams said. “He added skills when he was in Australia. It was a tough business out there - he was rolling out new stores and adding discipline into the business.”

The latter will be key at Kiddicare as Endless aims to take the retailer back to what it does best – online retail.

Despite his lack of experience in running a pure-play, one source said they didn’t expect this to be an issue. “Lovisa had an online business so he understands online. He’s a very good retailer and he’ll have people like a head of multichannel around him.”

When Morrisons bought Kiddicare.com it paid £70m for what was primarily a pure-play retailer just three years ago. Endless is expected to close Kiddicare’s 10 big-box stores which were opened under Morrisons’ ownership in 2012. The stores, former Best Buy branches, have been blamed as central to Kiddicare’s losses.

Friendly Yates is very much a hands-on retailer, said Adams. “Kiddicare will need some TLC,and someone like him is what it needs,” he added.

Speaking to Retail Week while he was at Jessops in 2012, Yates revealed he has an “obsessive desire” for high retail standards which he tries to instil in his team.

It may be a tough job but it such disciplines will be needed to put Kiddicare’s back on track to profitability.