Only 22 permanent retail CEOs were appointed over the last 12 months, the lowest UK number in a decade except for 2021 when businesses were dealing with the fallout from the pandemic

Just six of the new appointees were women. This means the number of new female chief executives has halved on the year before, according to figures from the 2025 Korn Ferry UK Retail CEO Tracker.

 

“This reflects the longitudinal contraction of the retail market in the UK, as more businesses have gone into distress over the last few years, with brands being acquired out of administration by larger players, or disappearing entirely,” said Sarah Lim, Korn Ferry managing director, board and CEO services, EMEA.

“In addition, the drop in number of female retail CEO appointments over the last year is an unwelcome development, particularly given increasing efforts in the last few years to promote greater boardroom diversity,” she added.

Among the six new female chief executives were Laura Brown of Aspinal of London, Julia Goddard of Harvey Nichols and Paula Nickolds of The White Company. Goddard and Nickolds were replacing other women, Manju Malhotra and Mary Homer, respectively. 

Fashion and luxury sees highest chief executive turnover

The majority (63%) of chief executives were appointed in the fashion, luxury and department store segment (this includes interim and executive chairs).

High-end brands have been hit hard by a global slowdown in luxury shopping, with both Burberry and Mulberry appointing new leaders in the last year.

 

New Dr. Martens chief executive Ije Nwokorie was one of just two ethnic minority appointments in 2024. The footwear specialists announced a 3% group revenue rise for the third quarter earlier this week.

Interim and executive chairs

In addition to the 22 permanent appointees, five interim and executive chairs took over retail companies last year. As well as Allan Leighton at Asda, this included Neil Brocklehurst at the Post Office and Jonathon Brown at Seraphine.

“These are typically businesses that have seen a material drop in performance and require seasoned and proven industry heavyweights to take action quickly to arrest the decline, and put in place fast recovery plans before taking action to recruit a long-term CEO,” said Lim.

Nearly three-quarters (74%) of new UK retail chief executives come from a background in a category defined by Korn Ferry as “commercial/trading/buying and merchandising”, up from 68% in 2023. Four had a background in retail operations, two from finance and one from brand/marketing.

There were seven non-British chief executive appointments, including American Joshua Schulman at Burberry, Spaniard David Pujolar at Footasylum and Frenchman Ralph Toledano as interim at Victoria Beckham.

No new chief executives have yet been announced at Matalan, Fenwick, ScS, and Clarks. Fenwick u-turned on the appointment of Nigel Blow, while it is unclear whether ScS will fill the role after the acquisition by Poltronesofà. 

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