Ted Baker poaches Jimmy Choo IT boss for chief information officer role

It is understood that Plaistowe, who spent four years at Jimmy Choo, will sit on the executive board at Ted Baker, which reported an 18.6% surge in profits in its full-year results in March, and will report directly to chief executive Ray Kelvin.

Plaistowe has a strong background in retail IT, having started his career at Burberry before taking on head of IT roles at Paperchase, Joseph and Value Retail.

Dustan Steer has held the role of IT director at Ted Baker since 1996, but it is understood that the chief information officer position is a newly created role at the retailer.

The appointment could signal the fashion retailer accelerating its international ecommerce ambitions after launching its first local-language website in Germany during its last quarter. Speaking to Retail Week following Ted Baker’s first-quarter results in June, Kelvin said the retailer would “absolutely” roll out local language sites across other markets, with plans to have language-specific websites “wherever we have stores”.

Ted Baker confirmed that Plaistowe has joined the business from Jimmy Choo, but declined to comment on the nature his new role.