Ted Baker boss Ray Kelvin has questioned the trend of employing chief customer officers, insisting that his business can run without one.

Founder Kelvin claimed that “all” of the fashion retailer and brand’s employees were “customer focused”, negating the need for someone to fill the role.

“We don’t need to employ a person to do that job,” he told Retail Week.

“I’m the CCO along with thousands of other people who work here. We’re all customer focused… that is what we do every day when we get up.”

Kelvin was speaking as the upmarket business unveiled a 4.4% uplift in pre-tax profit to £61.3m for the year ending January 28.

Before the impact of exceptional items, Ted Baker said pre-tax profit jumped 12.1% to £65.8m.

Revenues advanced 16.4% to £531m – a 10.8% increase on a constant currency basis – as sales grew in all of Ted Baker’s main markets across the globe.

Kelvin said that Ted Baker continued to succeed in a competitive fashion market because it had remained “product-motivated”.

“It is about product and brand,” he added.

“It is not a business that looks to get rich quickly. It’s about consistent growth and it is about doing things better only a daily basis.

“We are not meteoric, we are consistent. We don’t do zero to hero and there’s still plenty of firepower in the business.”

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