New Look has poached Alex Cara, head of franchising at Spanish retail giant Cortefiel, for a similar role at the fast fashion group.

Cara will join in October as franchise director. He will replace Michael Lemner, who has been at New Look for four years and in May became group managing director for franchise, developing markets and Mim, New Look’s French chain.

Cara took Cortefiel, which owns brands like Springfield, and Women’ secret, from a 50-store franchise operation to 500 stores in four years.

New Look has 612 stores in the UK and Republic of Ireland and 25 in France and Belgium, as well as franchises in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Separately, it has opened its website internationally. As well as launching in the Republic of Ireland, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, where New Look has stores, the site now delivers to the US, Australia, Germany, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Italy and Switzerland.

New Look e-commerce director Dom McBrien said the initiative is “useful for planning store roll-outs”.