Asda reshuffles general merchandise team

Asda commercial director for non-food John McDowell is to take up the newly-created position of director of merchandise leverage at Asda owner Walmart in the US, reporting to Moore. Asda said that McDowell is to work on “developing a process that helps us consistently exploit the unique buying power of Walmart”.

George at Asda brand director Fiona Lambert has taken on responsibility for home essentials and furnishings.

Louise Hoste, currently commercial director for home and seasonal at Asda, will move to become commercial director for hard lines including electricals.

George merchandise, sourcing and supply director Nick Jones is to extend his current remit and take responsibility for merchandise planning and sourcing for home furnishings. Jones was formerly M&S director of sourcing and health and beauty before joining Asda in 2011.

The reshuffle comes after Moore was appointed as chief merchandising officer of Asda and George in May, as part of the UK’s second largest grocer’s aims to become the number one non-food retailer in the UK by 2015.

In an internal email, Moore said: “This is not only a great move for John, but it also presents an opportunity for us to review how we align our categories within general merchandise most effectively. To this end, I want to develop our general merchandise business across.

“We have some great expertise available to us within the company, particularly in design, development and merchandising so I‘m pleased to confirm that Fiona Lambert will take additional responsibility for our home essentials and home furnishings categories.”

He added: “Nick’s previous industry experience and recent work with our sourcing operations overseas positions him ideally for this role.”

Moore said that Asda is looking to ramp up its buying and sourcing of brands in its electricals category and develop new designs and develop “our own product style” in homewares.