Marks & Spencer has poached Morrisons’ operations director David Lepley to take up the role of stores director.
Lepley, also a former vice-president of Asda’s online grocery business and project manager for former Asda chief executive Andy Clarke, will join M&S in the next few months.
He will report to M&S retail, operations and property director Sacha Berendji and is expected to play a pivotal role in improving store operations and, in particular, ensuring ‘the voice of the stores’ is heard as chief executive Steve Rowe battles to turn around its fortunes.
The retailer has pledged to listen to the views of store staff and act upon views from the trading frontline. M&S store managers now lead Monday morning trading calls and the results of the decisions taken in that meeting should be visible in branches by 5pm the same day.
Berendji said: “As part of our business transformation we’re recruiting new talent at pace for key areas of M&S. Our store teams play a critical role in our transformation, so we’re pleased that David Lepley will be joining as our director of stores.
“David brings years of trading experience and crucially great leadership skills. We’ve spoken already about how we’re bringing back the voice of the stores and freeing up our managers to trade and serve customers – David will play a big role in empowering this change.
“We also remain focused on responding to changing consumer habits and reshaping our store estate to ensure we’re offering our customers the very best experience, however, whenever and wherever they want to shop with us – from the very best service to the very best in-store tech. David, along with the rest of the retail leadership team, will help deliver our transformation to a store estate that is truly fit for the future.”
Lepley will be responsible for M&S’ owned stores in the UK and Ireland and joins a team that was restructured to reflect Berendji’s increased responsibilities after retail and property functions were brought together last year.
He is the latest newcomer to the team. In June, Andrew Turton joined as director of asset management.
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