Today in retail: Dixons exec takes the wheel at Halfords

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Halfords is revving its engine today after it bagged Dixons Carphone exec Graham Stapleton to succeed Jill McDonald, who is departing for M&S.

Stapleton possibly wasn’t anyone’s first guess – particularly given the raft of executive departures in recent weeks – but the appointment, on paper at least, seems to make sense.

The car-mad and razor-sharp retailer, who currently runs Dixons Carphone’s software business Honeybee and was instrumental in its 2015 merger, appears a good fit for the firm with a raft of relevant experience.

But, as one analyst put it, his isn’t a “blockbuster” appointment – more of a “safe pair of hands”.

Still, this will be of little importance to the retailer after former bosses (and retail big shots) Matt Davies and Jill McDonald put the building blocks in place to turn Halfords’ fortunes around during their short tenures.

Now a truly multichannel business on the up, it needs a boss to keep it on track, not to mention stick around for longer than two years.

Will Stapleton pass his MOT? Read more here.

Far from the only news today, Dunelm issued mixed full-year results and Retail Week launched its inaugural Tech. conference.

Day one of the conference included keynote talks from the likes of Amazon and Google. Follow all the action on our live blog.