Exclusive: Holland & Barrett boss Steve Willett to step down

The former digital director of the Kingfisher group was appointed to the top job at the health and beauty specialist in October 2020 and will step down in November.

This will be the second time a chief executive has left the role after little more than 12 months in the position at the health food chain. 

As revealed by Retail Week last year, Tony Buffin departed following the failure to agree upon a long-term incentive plan with the company’s private equity investor L1 Retail.

Willett will remain with Holland & Barrett as a non-executive director after he steps down in November, a position he held before his appointment to chief executive.

Holland & Barrett would not comment on who would be replacing Willett.

The retailer has made several appointments to the leadership team in recent months. 

Harvey Bennett, the current chief executive of Paws Holding and previous health and beauty director at Amazon, will join the retailer in July in the new role of customer managing director to focus on driving the omnichannel retail development.

In March, Tamara Rajah, a former partner at McKinsey & Co, took a newly created role as chief business and science officer to focus on the transformation of the brand beyond retail into diagnostics and services. 

In the same month, Eugene Chistyakov was appointed chief technology officer. He was co-founder and chief technology officer of Lazada Group.

Holland & Barrett chair Stephan DuCharme said: “I want to thank Steve for stepping into the role of CEO at short notice to lead and shape this bold vision and the transformation plan for the business.

“Now that we have a strengthened H&B executive team coming into place, Steve will continue to support its delivery from his non-executive role and I look forward to working more closely with the Holland & Barrett executive team to lead this exciting strategy.”

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