Strategy directors are de rigueur, with Asos, JLP and M&S all making big hires. But are they “a fashion accessory”, as one chief executive claims, or a necessary exec role in today’s fast-changing climate?

With insight from:

  • Asos non-executive director and BrandCap chair Rita Clifton on why a chief strategy officer should not be seen as a “luxury”
  • A chief executive who believes the role is “an admission of guilt that you, as the boss, don’t know what to do”
  • Superdry chair Peter Williams on why devolving strategy to just one position is not a wise move

Asos is on the hunt for one, it was John Lewis Partnership’s new chairman Sharon White’s first appointment upon taking the helm, and Marks & Spencer has brought non-executive Katie Bickerstaffe on to the operating board for the role.

Chief strategy officers and strategy directors have gone from being a relatively niche position on retail boards to the new executive role de rigueur.

At the time of Bickerstaffe’s appointment earlier this month, Marks & Spencer’s chief executive Steve Rowe said her “experience in leading roles at UK food and non-food retailers and track record of delivering large-scale change will be invaluable as we accelerate our transformation”.

Nina Bhatia

Nina Bhatia was hired in the new role of executive director of strategy and commercial development at JLP 

And JLP’s White said Nina Bhatia, appointed in the newly created role of executive director of strategy and commercial development, would “play a crucial role as part of the newly formed Future Partnership executive team”.

So why is a board member dedicated to strategy now needed by today’s retailers?

Rita Clifton, non-executive director at Asos and chair at branding consultancy BrandCap, believes that there are “very few businesses that do not need someone doing this job – particularly more traditional retailers that have been incredibly operationally focused”.

“It is easy to look at someone with the job title and think it is a luxury,” she says, “whereas the very nature of a chief strategy officer is someone who has the time and space to focus and think about the major strategic issues facing the business.”

“Those running businesses may be very bright, but they have a day job to do, which means they can contribute to strategy, but not spend the time it takes to take an organisation forward in a way that has real depth and substance.”

However, there are those that disagree.

One retail boss dismissed the position as little more than “a fashion accessory for the CEO” and an “admission of guilt that you, as the boss, don’t know what to do”.

Is he right? Should something as fundamental to a business’ success as the development of strategy not sit firmly in the remit of the chief executive?

Barracuda Search managing partner Justin Linger does not believe so.

“The chief strategy officer is ultimately responsible for developing the strategy of the business, covering mergers and acquisitions and business development,” he says.

”They’ll answer questions like: What is our niche against competitors? Should we look at overseas? Should we be considering a joint venture in a new market? How are we going to extend the brand into different categories and different parts of the world? What should the next three, five, 10 years look like for your business and why?

”To be frank, the CEO doesn’t have the bandwidth to think about that – they are more focused on the day-to-day due diligence and execution.”

Linger adds that the job of the strategy director is to present a retail chief executive with a variety of commercially viable options for business development, but that any final strategic decision will always be down to the boss.

“The strategy department doesn’t decide what strategy is – the CEO does and the buck stops with them,” he says.

“Even if you are a CEO with good strategic instincts, you still need an architect who does the more analytical work” 

Rita Clifton, Asos and BrandCap

Clifton likens the impact of having a strategy director on a retail board to the difference between a homeowner imagining how they would like to renovate their home and actually getting the builders in to investigate the scale of the overhaul that is feasible.

“Even if you are a CEO with good strategic thinking and instincts, you still need an architect who does the deeper and more analytical work to paint a roadmap for your business development in quantitative and qualitative terms,” she says.

What makes a good strategy director?

So what does the role of a strategy director entail and what background and skills make for a successful one?

Dixons Carphone group strategy and corporate affairs director Assad Malic says his remit is to bolster the executive team’s vision.

Katie Bickerstaffe

M&S non-executive Katie Bickerstaffe was brought on to the board as strategy and transformation director

“Our strategy function supports the business to make informed decisions for maximum impact by identifying where to focus and what to deliver,” he says.

“We do more than traditional strategic planning; we identify threats and opportunities, monitor performance, forecast trends, assess capability, and evaluate scenarios and potential corporate value-creation strategies.”

Headhunter Korn Ferry retail managing director Sarah Lim says the nature of the role, which looks at things such as new market entry and mergers and acquisitions, requires some retail experience. However, she says a strategy house background is preferential to give a broad view on how different businesses work.

Linger agrees that previous experience at a “top-tier strategy consultancy”, such as Bain, Boston Consulting Group or McKinsey, will stand a retail chief strategy officer in good stead.

“They should also have experience of major transformation strategy projects in retail businesses, understand all the different functional areas and understand the industry dynamics,” he adds.

strategy consultancy background also ensures that a candidate is “able to present ideas quickly, break things down into their constituent parts and communicate effectively with key stakeholders”, according to Linger. 

“They should also be creative, but incredibly numerate and able to rationalise ideas through data,” he adds.

Should we silo strategy?

However, one retail chief executive is adamant that developing strategy for the business should be the job of the whole executive board, not a remit assigned to one specific individual.

“While strategy is not exclusively my job, I spend much more time thinking about what will happen in our business in the next three to five years than I do thinking about what should happen today,” he says.

“I can’t get my head around a role that is specifically and exclusively for strategy. Surely that is what everyone on your board should already be doing?”

Retail chief executive

“I’ve not set a hard and fast rule, but I’d guess 70% of my time goes into planning what is coming next for our business and the balance of my top team’s time is much more focused towards strategic initiatives and anticipating what is happening with our customers – be that through reading articles, talking to colleagues or visiting shops.

“I can’t get my head around a role that is specifically and exclusively for strategy. Surely that is what everyone on your board should already be doing?”

Superdry chair Peter Williams agrees that devolving the responsibility of business strategy to one executive position is not a wise move.

“It depends on what business you are and what you are up to, to some extent, but strategy is and always should be the responsibility of the board in its entirety,” he says.

“Having someone dedicated to it is fine, but what shouldn’t happen is the responsibility of strategy gets entirely aggregated to one person. Everyone who reports to the CEO, and the CEO themselves, should all participate.”

Dixons Carphone’s Malic says his team informs what happens in terms of strategy based on wider market research, but does not devolve responsibility away from the executive team.

“All Dixons Carphone executives are intrinsically linked to strategy creation, ensuring we embed different perspectives into our strategies so that they can go beyond standard templates and reflect the fast-paced industry and world we operate in,” he says.

”We have also aligned the strategy and corporate affairs functions, which means we can generate insights based on external forces as well as on longer-term market trends, ensuring that the strategy is anchored in value creation.” 

In-house vs strategy consultancy

Williams adds that a chief strategy officer is not an appointment every retailer can justify from a cost perspective, and only those that are undergoing a significant business transformation should prioritise the role.

“We had one in Selfridges [where Williams was formerly chief executive] when the organisation was rolling out more stores, and it was a really massive change in terms of systems, processes, organisational structure, et cetera,” he says. 

“We did bring someone in from the outside with a strategy consultancy background to help with the change work – but he didn’t stay forever. About a year or two after we did the transformation, he left the business.”

“Having someone dedicated to it is fine, but what shouldn’t happen is the responsibility of strategy gets entirely aggregated to one person”

Peter Williams, Superdry

Williams says that, due to the cost of a permanent chief strategy officer, for many businesses working with an outside consultancy as and when they are needed is a more financially viable option.

Lim echoes this view: “If you are a smaller company it is an expensive hire, and it can be done by buying in external resource, or you could think about how to create the focus from a non-executive standpoint.”

While only retailers of a “certain scale, size and complexity can warrant having” a strategy director, Linger highlights that the role has proven “a good talent bank to have within the business from a succession planning perspective”.

He points to M&S former strategy director and ex-McKinsey consultant Melanie Smith’s recent appointment as chief executive of Ocado Retail, M&S’ joint venture with Ocado and Pepco’s former strategy and group development director Mark Elliott’s promotion as managing director of Poundland’s European stablemate Dealz.

Clifton believes that having an internal strategy leader can be beneficial when it comes to implementing strategy.

“Having someone who is embedded in the business, versus an external resource like a consultancy, can make a difference,” she says. “If you aren’t there for the execution or implementation, what you proposed can end up only partially done, or not executed in the way you envisaged.”

“Having strategy in-house means making sure there is someone with their hand on the tiller who has familiarity with and influence across the business, and accountability for the practical work to be done on a daily, weekly, monthly basis.”

It may be becoming a more commonplace appointment, but chief strategy officer remains a divisive one.

Chief growth officer

Another role that has gone from a boardroom anomaly to a common appointment is that of chief growth officer, with Asos and Missguided both adding the role to their board in recent months.

But what does this role actually entail?

Altrua founding partner Lucy Harris says that a chief growth officer is tasked with overseeing and driving the performance of a retailer’s products across all channels, from digital and physical to license and wholesale.

She explains that, while in previous years it was possible to have a retail director and digital director take care of these channels in silos, the fast-moving nature of the industry today means retailers “can’t really make the most of those opportunities in real-time unless one person is owning it”.

“It’s an appointment that allows retailers to run a much more productive business and leverage growth in the right areas, such as ramping up international as soon as local sales start to stagnate, or driving online when physical sales are slowing down.

“But, unless you have one person looking across all those channels at once, it is much harder to know which lever to pull and when.”

Harris also argues that, while a chief strategy officer role can only be justified when a business is in “an acute period of turnaround and transformation”, the chief growth officer role is one that every retailer should have on their board now to keep abreast of rapidly changing market dynamics and consumer shopping habits.