If you were to appoint a new chief executive for a fast-growing pureplay retailer with a blossoming international presence, what sort of person would you hire?

Perhaps you’d raid Asos or Zalando for one of their top brass or rising stars?

But online powerhouse Boohoo, which has increased turnover by 24 times in just seven years and, at around £2bn, is capitalised at more than many of its main market-listed peers, has not turned to a digital operator.

Instead, it is drafting in someone not just schooled in bricks and mortar, but from a retailer that doesn’t even trade online – Primark.

“Deep industry knowledge and expertise is as valuable in the new economy as in the old, if applied in different ways”

John Lyttle, Boohoo’s new chief executive who takes up the role in March, has been Primark’s chief operating officer for eight years. During that time the value apparel giant has not put a foot wrong as sales and profits have soared.

Lyttle’s appointment shows while retail may be undergoing a channel shift, and consumer adoption of new technology and ways of communicating is transforming established shopping habits, traditional retail disciplines cannot be underestimated.

While Boohoo represents the new generation of retail and has deployed technology to grow fast, it and its founders – notably Mahmud Kamani, who will become executive chairman – are in some ways extremely traditional.

The trading mentality, focus on product and supply chain strength would be recognisable at many ‘old skool’ retailers.

Kamani’s background was in the rag trade, where he worked his way up from market stalls to supplying well-known high street names, including Primark.

That was how he met Boohoo co-founder Carol Kane, and the pair applied their prodigious fashion industry knowledge to new opportunities and ways of doing business heralded by online.

“Business history is littered with instances of companies whose leaders became obsessed by their share prices”

In that respect, perhaps it’s no surprise that they should turn to someone steeped in fashion retail to run Boohoo as it enters a new phase. A phase that will be marked, as Primark’s progress has been, by international expansion reliant on “world class” business infrastructure.

Lyttle’s appointment is a reminder that the more things change, the more they also stay the same. Deep industry knowledge and expertise is as valuable in the new economy as in the old, if applied in different ways.

His success at Primark and move to Boohoo should provide encouragement to other leaders of traditional retailers that their skills are not superannuated. If more of them could put them to use with the finesse of Primark, perhaps fewer would be in trouble.

Rewarding success

If Boohoo’s new boss increases the etailer’s market capitalisation by 180% to £5.6bn within the next five years, he stands to make £50m.

There’s nothing wrong with handsomely rewarding success but is market cap the right measure? Wouldn’t sales and profit growth be a better gauge?

Rewards packages based on increases in the share price are certainly not unusual. Nevertheless, market cap is influenced by all sorts of factors such as future performance estimates and it is only one way to judge success.

Business history is littered with instances of companies whose leaders became more obsessed by their share prices than fundamental business performance.

There is no suggestion that would be the case with Lyttle or Boohoo, but in general isn’t it better to let the market value an enterprise, rather than make the City valuation a preoccupation of the chief executive?

A rise in capitalisation would presumably mirror the performance of the business, which should surely be the executive team’s primary concern.