Holland & Barrett has snapped up Starbucks’ vice-president of technology Mark Fabes for its newly-created chief information officer role, Retail Week can reveal.

Fabes has joined the health and wellbeing retailer after nearly two years as vice-president of technology for Starbucks’ EMEA division, which comprised driving the technology strategy for the coffee chain across 39 markets and over 2,500 outlets.

In his new role Fabes will be tasked with driving customer, brand and business insights for Holland & Barrett using data across its stores, website and loyalty scheme.

The retailer said that Fabes’ role has been created to enable Holland & Barrett “to better analyse customer information and shopping habits” in order to “develop hyper-targeted communications and promotions” for shoppers both online and in-store.

Fabes, who spent nearly six year’s as the UK IT director at McDonald’s prior to joining Starbucks, will report to Holland & Barrett’s chief executive Peter Aldis in his new role.

Fabes said: “One of the biggest areas of focus in retail in the next couple of years will be about having a comprehensive 360 degree view of your customer.

“The overarching aim is to leverage deeper knowledge of how their customers engage with their business across all touch points, helping them reach decisions that create a truly blended experience across all channels.

“I was impressed by Holland & Barrett’s commitment to leverage data as part of a broader ambition to become the trusted partner for their customers in their purchasing decisions.”

Aldis added: “We have ambitious plans for the future of our business and we are very excited to have Mark’s big brand experience to help us take our end-to-end customer experience to the next level.”

Fabes marks the first hire by Holland & Barrett since it was acquired by investment vehicle L1 Retail for £1.8bn in June.