Today, alongside our Christmas trading update, I’ve announced the appointment of a Managing Director to run Tesco in the UK. The UK is the biggest part of the Tesco business, and it’s our home, so I thought it would be a good idea to tell you a bit more about both the person and why I’ve made this appointment.

The new UK Managing Director is Chris Bush. Chris has worked for the company for over 30 years. He and I have been working together in the UK for the last nine months, where he has been Chief Operating Officer. Before the UK, we had spent seven years working together in our international businesses; he was COO in Korea and after that led our businesses in Malaysia and Thailand. I was the International Director at the time so I saw Chris at work and he is undoubtedly a very talented retailer and leader.

Chris’ position is a new one. If you follow Tesco closely you might remember last March I stepped temporarily into the role of directly running the UK business. Together we devised the £1billion, six-point plan to Build a Better Tesco in the UK, a plan to deliver improvements to the shopping trip for our customers by investing in service, stores, products and online.

My senior team in the UK have worked with energy, determination and imagination to implement the plan. We called ourselves the ‘Baldock Group’ because we spent a day a week in the Baldock store, developing and delivering the changes from the sharp end of the business. Chris has been at the forefront of the work we’ve been doing.

It’s a big plan and although it’s early days we’re starting to make real progress, as you’ll see from our trading update today. Customers are seeing the investment we’re making in our stores and our products, and our colleagues now have more of the resources they need to give our customers the shopping experience they expect from Tesco.

There remains a lot to do, but the plan and the team are in place. It’s the right time to appoint someone to lead the delivery of the UK plan and for me to spend more time on the rest of the Group. Of course I’ll stay close to the UK business; we will agree the strategy and Chris and the team will get on with delivering it. Chris has a very experienced leadership team and we’ve also asked Gerry Gray to return to the UK, leading UK stores and supply chain.  He is another experienced Tesco retailer, leading our business in Hungary for the past two years. Prior to that he managed our Express stores in the UK and before that ran operations in our Thai business.

Chris is also joining the Executive Committee which develops, sets and delivers the Group strategy.

As well as Chris, we’ve announced three other appointments to that group, two internal, one external. This demonstrates the depth of management talent we have at Tesco and also our strategy of bringing in real experts from outside in to key enabling roles.

The first appointment is Jill Easterbrook, one of our most talented leaders. Jill has wide ranging experience in commercial and store operations, ran our strategy department and last year led important changes to our UK clothing business, laying the foundations for its recent success. She now has strategic leadership for a number of our businesses - Tesco Ireland, Tesco Mobile, Dobbies, One Stop, Nutri Centre and Blinkbox - which allows Chris and the UK team to focus on the core UK store and online business.

Benny Higgins, who runs Tesco Bank is the other internal appointment. Benny is an actuary by profession but has been a senior banker for the last 15 years. He has led Tesco Bank since the business was acquired in 2008. He has a wealth of experience, and he will bring a welcome new perspective on issues across the Group.

We have also hired Robin Terrell as Multi-Channel Director. Robin is one of the most influential and experienced leaders in multichannel retailing in the UK. He joins us from House of Fraser where he led their multichannel development, having done the same at John Lewis, was COO of Figleaves.com and was MD of Amazon’s UK business for six years. He joins in February and will help Tesco to become a multichannel leader in all our markets. His appointment is another sign of our commitment to be digital leaders wherever we operate, and I’m delighted he’s agreed to join us to build on our leading work in this area.

Gordon Fryett, who currently runs our European businesses and Group Property team will be retiring in November after 44 years’ with Tesco. As part of the planning for this, I have asked Ken Towle, currently Internet Retailing Director, to be the Regional Managing Director for Europe. Ken has extensive experience in the UK and internationally having led our business in China. Gordon will continue to lead the Group Property team and both will remain on the Executive Committee.

Taken from Tesco’s Talking Shop