Shop Direct has appointed Pets at Home’s logistics and business systems director Phil Hackney to the newly-created role of operations director.

Hackney will be responsible for logistics, fulfilment and customer service when he joins the company in the new year. He will sit on the Shop Direct board and report to chief executive Alex Baldock.

Baldock said: “He is a logistics guru with tonnes of ecommerce experience, and I am really looking forward to acting on Phil’s ideas to take our operations to the next level.”

Hackney has worked at Pets at Home since 2007 and has also spent 12 years at Boots in logistics operations.

After Boots he spent six years with global IT firm Tech Data, where he was responsible for ecommerce fulfilment operations, before assuming responsibility for logistics operations in Northern Europe.

His time at Tech Data included “integrating a South American mobile phone business into a pan-European model”.

Hackney said he will use his experience to “make good things easily accessible to more people” while at Shop Direct.