Retail Week looks at how the entrepreneur and philanthropist built a transatlantic empire and changed the face of the industry.

The world of retail was shaken earlier this week by the passing of W Galen Weston at the age of 80. 

Galen Weston 09

W Galen Weston 

Weston was the youngest of nine children to Willard Garfield Weston, who had expanded the family’s George Weston bakery business into a multinational corporation and sat as a member in the House of Commons. 

But he was also an entrepreneur and retail leader in his own right, having owned high-end department store Selfridges and helped to found Primark

Retail Week looks at the ways Weston changed retail, both in the UK and abroad. 

Ireland’s first avocado

In a bid to step out of the shadow of his domineering father, at the age of 21 Weston moved to Ireland with the goal of setting up a business of his own. 

While his father refused to fund the venture, a loan from his Northern Irish grandmother saw Weston found Powers, a supermarket in the Irish capital of Dublin. Having worked as a supermarket ‘bag boy’ in his teenage years, the idea of owning a grocer appealed. 

Powers, founded in 1966, grew into a chain of supermarkets around Ireland before it was bought by Tesco in 1997.

While Weston would perhaps go on to be better known for his successes in fashion and luxury retailing, The Daily Telegraph relates an anecdote that shows the extent to which he influenced food retailing as well – certainly in Ireland. One of Powers’ great claims to fame was that it was the first retailer to ever sell avocados in the Republic of Ireland.

Fashion to the masses

In 1969, Weston snapped up a bankrupt department store in Dublin called Todd Burns and, with the help of a young, Irish-born store manager from Dunnes by the name of Arthur Ryan, reinvented it as value fashion retailer Penneys.

Penneys proved to be a hit and the business began to rapidly expand. A few years later, in 1973, when it opened its first store in the UK in Derby, the decision was made to change the name there to Primark. The rest, as they say, is history. 

“In a nice way, he was always paranoid about the competition. He had a relentless focus on the customer journey, and consumer preferences and lifestyles”

Breege O’Donoghue, formerly Primark 

Former Primark senior executive Breege O’Donoghue, who first met Weston in 1979, described him as “a fantastic entrepreneur. Commercially astute. Innovation was a big thing for him and value for money”.

She added: “In a nice way, he was always paranoid about the competition. He had a relentless focus on the customer journey, and consumer preferences and lifestyles.”

Around the same time, Weston met 18-year-old fashion model Hilary Frayne. Wed in 1966, the two would remain happily married for the rest of Weston’s life. He even bought her an interest in upmarket Dublin store Brown Thomas in the mid-1980s. 

However, what many may not know is that Frayne was a “great seamstress” who took command of the cutting and machining business that stocked the first Penneys stores.

So it is hard to overstate just how deep an impact both Weston and Frayne had on Primark and, by extension, fashion retailing.

“Weston had an extraordinary impact in Ireland, not just in shaping the retail landscape, but in the energy, vision and clear love he had for this country”

Donald McDonald, Brown Thomas Arnotts

With its low-price and high-value model, its trailblazing success as a European retailer in the US and its staunch commitment to stores in an increasingly digital world, it has been one of modern retail’s great success stories.

Brown Thomas Arnotts managing director Donald McDonald said Weston had an “extraordinary impact in Ireland, not just in shaping the retail landscape, but in the energy, vision and clear love he had for this country”.

Grocery format innovator 

After a number of years in Ireland, familial duty called Weston back to Canada. In 1971, his father put him in charge of Loblaws, a supermarket chain that Garfield had taken control of in 1947.

Despite being the family’s largest asset at the time, it had been reduced to near-bankruptcy. Galen Weston would go on to turn it into one of Canada’s most profitable grocery chains. 

Under Weston’s watch, Loblaw’s ailing supermarket estate was renovated and refitted, and the brand’s logo and marketing were updated with new colours.

“You never, ever wanted to let him down. Not because of the fear of failure, but because of the fear of letting him down personally. You knew he backed you and you returned that in spades to him”

Dalton Philips, formerly Brown Thomas and Loblaws 

Loblaws also led the Canadian grocery market in trialling new hypermarket formats and has been an own-brand market leader, having spent more than $40m developing the ranges in the 1990s. 

At Loblaws, Weston also showed what others have called one of his strongest traits as a businessman: his loyalty to certain key executives, which was reciprocated time and again. 

Former Morrisons chief executive Dalton Philips, who worked for Weston for five and a half years, first as head of Brown Thomas and then as chief operating officer at Loblaws, summed it up to the The Irish Times: “People say he was brilliant at picking people… but, more than that, he was brilliant at getting the best out of people.

“You never, ever wanted to let him down. Not because of the fear of failure, but because of the fear of letting him down personally. You knew he backed you and you returned that in spades to him.”

Selfridges’ transformation

Weston also more than made his mark on the world of luxury retail and department stores. In 1986, he bought the Canadian luxury department store chain Holt Renfrew, going on to extensively refurbish the retailer’s 15 stores. 

The Daily Mail described Weston as an “unassuming billionaire” who “liked nothing better than to wander the elegant halls of his landmark Canadian store, Holt Renfrew, chatting to customers about their experience and engaging with staff on the progress of new products and lines of fashion”.

“The luxury retail industry has lost a great visionary. His energy electrified those of us who were lucky enough to work alongside him to reimagine what customer experience could be”

Alannah Weston, Selfridges

In 2003, he also bought the then slightly faded London department store jewel Selfridges. With his trademark focus on customer experience and quality products, he and his daughter Alannah have helped transform Selfridges into arguably Britain’s best-loved and most resilient department store, despite the format being largely in decline. 

Despite rumours of a falling out with his elder brother Garry, scion of the ‘British’ Westons and head of Associated British Foods, Galen Weston also served on the board of Fortnum & Mason, which was owned and run by his brother’s two daughters. 

Alannah, who replaced her father as chair of Selfridges Group in 2019, said: “The luxury retail industry has lost a great visionary. His energy electrified those of us who were lucky enough to work alongside him to reimagine what customer experience could be.”

Giving back 

Alongside his retail work, Weston was a prodigious philanthropist right up until his death.

He was president of the Weston Family Foundation, founded by his father in the 1950s, which made more than $200m in donations to charities that “make a difference and enhance the quality of life for Canadians”. 

Weston was also connected to the Garfield Weston Foundation, based in London, which has an endowment from the family of more than £9.7bn and makes grants in excess of £60m a year to charities in the UK.

After buying Selfridges, Weston also helped to set up the Selfridges Group Foundation, which supports research into neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

In recognition of his philanthropic work, Weston was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1990 and made a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 2017.

Weston is survived by his wife Hilary and children Alannah and Galen G Weston. He not only leaves behind an £8bn retail empire, but also the enduring respect and admiration of countless retailers on both sides of the Atlantic.