Ben Reid has stepped down from the group board of The Co-operative Group.
Reid, who is also CEO of Midcounties Co-operative Society, leaves two days after the society’s elected members voted in favour of corporate governance reforms, which will eventually see the five directors of independent co-op societies currently on The Co-op Group’s board of directors leave.
In a short statement, The Co-op Group said: “The Co-operative Group today announces that Ben Reid is stepping down as a director of the group board with immediate effect.”
It is understood Reid had been planning to stand down from the board this year. He has been a group board member since 2000.
Earlier this month, he responded to criticism from Lord Paul Myners, who led the society’s review of its governance after Myners told a Treasury Select Committee hearing that it was “astonishing” Reid was still on the board of The Co-op Group after being on The Co-op Bank’s audit committee for three years.
Reid told The Guardian at the time: “It’s a shame that the debate has got personal when it’s about something more important than Ben Reid or Paul Myners. We’ve got the agm next week and I look forward to us having a good debate and moving forward.
“I’m not the only one that has been on the board in that time. There are all sorts of implications of what Paul is saying. Why he would target me I don’t know.
“It’s a tragic way to handle what should have been quite a positive thing for the whole of the movement. I don’t know why Paul has chosen to make this adversarial whereas the nature of the [co-operative] beast is to want to discuss things, be collaborative and debate.”
