McColl’s trading director Peter Miller has left the business as part of a change to its leadership structure.
The convenience retailer is introducing a new role of commercial director and has removed the trading director role, which Miller had held since July 2011.
McColl’s has appointed Ian Martin as interim commercial director as it searches for a permanent appointment.
Martin, who will start on 25 March, has been working as a consultant to retail businesses via his Adduco Retail Consulting business since 2012.
In that time he had spells as interim trading and marketing director at Nisa and head of commercial at the Co-operative Food Group. Before moving into consultancy, Martin held a series of managerial and director-level roles in Asda.
“As we look to appoint a permanent commercial director, I am pleased to announce the appointment of Ian Martin to this newly created position on an interim basis,” said McColl’s COO Dave Thomas. “Ian has a wealth of relevant experience in both convenience retail and wholesale, which we will benefit from as we continue to enhance our neighbourhood convenience offer.”
The Grocer reported last month that McColl’s is to instigate a category-by-category range review this year as it looks to get the business fully back on track following the upheaval caused by the collapse of its former distributor Palmer & Harvey.
This followed the business reporting a 57% fall in pre-tax profits to £7.9m for the year to 25 November. While overall sales jumped 8.1% to £1.24bn, like-for-likes fell 1.2% in the year.
Read more: McColl’s head of convenience store format Steve Browne joins Heart of England Co-op
However, it said the trend was heading back in the right direction, with flat like-for-likes in the final quarter and a 1.4% increase in the first quarter of the current financial year.
Miller left McColl’s at the end of February and, according to his Linkedin profile, he is now setting himself up as a consultant ‘specialising in fmcg retail and wholesale buyer to supplier relationships’.
Before joining McColl’s he spent seven years as group trading director for Spar UK, which followed trading roles at Big Food Group, Iceland and Booker.
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