Ikea China country manager Gillian Drakeford has been appointed to head up the retailer in the UK and Ireland. Retail Week takes a look at the Ikea lifer.

When Gillian Drakeford steps into Ikea’s Wembley headquarters tomorrow (Thursday August 1) to take up the helm as country manager for the UK and Ireland, it will mark a return to working full time on British soil for Drakeford after a 10-year stint heading up the furniture giant in China.

Drakeford will lead a retailer in a country miles apart – in every sense – to the UK. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal last year, Drakeford said the majority of Ikea’s shoppers visit the furniture giant by public transport while the average family live in a space of between 753 sq ft and 969 sq ft, mostly in a high-rise block.

China’s a retail market Drakeford has known for the past decade and one she has headed for Ikea since 2008. During this time, she has helped feed the country’s appetite for Scandinavian home furnishing by growing the company’s store portfolio from six to 11 stores. She oversaw the retailer’s flagship store in Beijing – a shop that attracts more than six million people per year, making it the most-visited Ikea store worldwide. Drakeford has previously said the retailer’s Beijing store attracts 28,000 visitors on a Saturday – equal to the number of weekly visitors in an Ikea store of a similar size in Western Europe.

Drakeford is an Ikea lifer - she has worked for the retailer since 1987 when she formed part of the management team that opened the company’s first UK store in Warrington - and is passionate about retail. One former colleague highlights this passion by telling Retail Week: “If you cut her, she’d bleed retail.”

Drakeford is widely respected - her former peers speak highly of her and praise her professionalism. One former Ikea employee who worked with Drakeford at Warrington describes her as “very ambitious” and says she “got on with the job”.

One person who was part of the management team alongside Drakeford in the late 1980s and early 1990s tells Retail Week that she was a “wonderful lady” to work with.

“She’s a fantastic retailer with amazing experience,” he says. “She helped build Ikea in the UK and she was a valued member of the team… she excels wherever she is.”

It’s clear not only from her longevity at the retailer, during which she has also worked at the Ikea Birmingham store and worked as store project manager for its Beijing store, but also from a statement from Ikea that she fits in with the Swedish retailer’s culture.

Ikea said: “As a leader, Gillian has a genuine belief in people working together and successfully developed local senior leadership in the Ikea stores in China. She takes an inclusive approach to management- founded in the Ikea culture and values - of collaboration and professional development, which will contribute to strengthening the position of Ikea as leader of the home furnishings market in the UK and Ireland.”

One former colleague echoes this: “You’re either an Ikea person or you’re not and she was. She’s very humble and thoughtful.” Looking back at their years of working together, he adds: “She had a lovely way of doing things such as writing things down and ticking off her list.”

Still, while she’s clearly perceived as a people person, she was also known as being “strong-headed”. One former colleague says: “We had a lot of discussions.”

It’s too early to say what Drakeford will bring to the flat-pack table in the UK, but with pictures emerging last year of Chinese shoppers napping on Ikea’s showroom beds and sofas, perhaps Drakeford might bring the ‘try before you buy’ concept to a whole new level over here.