Ted Baker poaches Debenhams finance director

Osborne, who joined Debenhams on September 17, 2018, will step down from her role to take up the same position at struggling fashion retailer Ted Baker in the coming months.

She will succeed Charles Anderson, who stepped down as finance boss of Ted Baker to take up the same role at Mulberry in August after a 17-year tenure at the fashion retailer.

Osborne joined Debenhams last year from Domino’s and has previously held senior finance roles at businesses including Vodafone, John Lewis, Kingfisher and PepsiCo.

She will be succeeded by the department store retailer’s current group finance director Mike Hazell, who has been at Debenhams since 2010 and has previously held roles at Sky and Pfizer.

Debenhams chief executive Stefaan Vansteenkiste said: “I would like to thank Rachel for her important contribution to the successful progress of our restructuring during her time at Debenhams. I am pleased we have such a strong internal candidate for the CFO role, with Mike having played a key part in the refinancing and restructuring activity over the past 12 months.”

Osborne was one of the few members of the executive team to survive a board room cull led by former Debenhams shareholder Mike Ashley in January, which saw former chair Sir Ian Cheshire exit the business with immediate effect, shortly followed by former chief executive Sergio Bucher in April.

Her departure from the beleaguered department store chain shortly follows the exit of longstanding marketing, beauty and digital boss Richard Cristofoli following a board reshuffle earlier this month, alongside stores, operations and food boss Mark Ashman and transformation and people director Sally Hyndman

Ted Baker executive chair David Bernstein said: “Rachel’s career to date makes her a great fit for the board and we are delighted to welcome her to Ted Baker. As our strategy to grow the business continues, Rachel’s experience of working in the challenging retail environment we currently face will be highly valuable. We look forward to leveraging her significant brand and retail experience and expertise moving forward.”

Osborne added: “I am thrilled to be joining Ted Baker as chief financial officer. Ted Baker is an outstanding global brand and I am hugely looking forward to the opportunity to contribute to the next phase of its development.”

Ted Baker warned on profits in June due to “extremely difficult trading conditions”. The retailer now expects full-year profits to come in between £50m and £60m.