By his own admission, Rowan Gormley lives for business – but now his life has been shunted into the fast lane after he took the wheel at Majestic Wine.

Rowan Gormley

“The keys to the Ferrari have been passed on to Rowan and he’s the man with a great track record who’s now going to burn it round the track,” Majestic’s chairman Phil Wrigley analogised as Gormley set about making himself comfortable in the driver’s seat.

Majestic revealed Gormley as its new boss today when it reported it had acquired Naked Wines, the business he founded.

There’s no doubt his new vehicle represents an upgrade. Majestic has more than 200 stores trading across the UK and is expected to reveal adjusted pre-tax profit of around £21m for the year ended March 31, 2015, despite hitting a bump in the road during 2014.

“It’s a big step for me, it’s a bigger job for me. Majestic are bloody good at doing what they do.”

Rowan Gormley, Majestic Wine

Gormley founded Naked Wines, an online crowd-funded business, in December 2008. It has expanded to work with more than 130 independent winemakers in 14 countries, but its UK EBITDA of £2.1m for the year ending December 31, 2014 is dwarfed by its new owner’s profits.       

Despite previously founding Virgin Wines, the Virgin ONE Account and Virgin Money, 53-year-old Gormley acknowledges that the challenge facing him at Majestic is his biggest yet.

“It’s a big step for me, it’s a bigger job for me,” Gormley tells Retail Week. “Majestic are bloody good at doing what they do. There’s already a great depth of knowledge about how to run a good retail operation within Majestic.

“It’s certainly not something that makes me nervous, but I think in terms of the personal challenge in this, it’s a great opportunity for me as something that I’ve never done before – gone into an existing business.

“But the fact Majestic has got great assets in terms of its people, its network and its product range, it’s hard to think of a more exciting opportunity for me at this stage of my life.”

Multichannel strategy

Gormley keeps the majority of his strategic cards close to his chest – rightly so given the fact he is talking to Retail Week just two hours after starting his new role – but hints that the retailer will not be investing as heavily in new stores as former boss Steve Lewis had planned.

He also admits he will be drawing on his online and mobile expertise since Majestic’s digital operation “isn’t looking as exciting as it should”, but says a “more comprehensive strategy” will be laid out in the coming months, even though he insists that Majestic has not done anything “particularly wrong” despite a challenging period of trading.

“When you look at the underlying assets of the business, they are very strong,” Gormley says. “All that’s happened is that the market has moved – it’s moved online, and the rise of Aldi and Lidl has forced the supermarkets into a discounting war, so the game has changed a bit.

“I really don’t think there’s that much wrong with Majestic. I’d rather see it as a fantastic opportunity for it to deliver what it’s really capable of.

“Before I got into the wine business myself, I was a loyal Majestic customer. The reason was because I loved going into the stores, talking to the people and they took the time and trouble to help you find wines that you would enjoy.

“So stores will continue to remain an important piece of the puzzle. But if we can bring people into the stores rather than stores to the people, it feels like we are going to get a better return on investment from doing that.”

Channelling assets

While Majestic can garner the online expertise of Naked Wines, Gormley says there are also lessons the etailer can learn from its new parent. He wants Naked to instil a similar wine knowledge into its customer-facing staff to replicate what he calls “a great asset” across in-store and online shopping.  

But in the same breath, Gormley acknowledges that the two retailers hold different customer bases and is keen to “avoid change for the sake of change”.

Any modifications that are made will be carried out on a very diplomatic basis, it seems. “I’m not a command and control person,” Gormley says of his management style.

“I’m pretty bad with detail, so I like to surround myself with people who are very good at it and I like working in an environment where there is a healthy, active debate.

“There’s a reason Majestic is still there, still thriving and still profitable, when a lot of lesser companies have fallen by the wayside. That’s a tribute to Steve [Lewis] and the people before him and around him for building a great business.

“So the scale of this challenge is enormous, but it’s something I’m ready for.”

Majestic Wine appoints Naked Wines founder as CEO as it acquires rival