Asda has suffered a blow with incoming hire Andrew Staniland, group buying director at Iceland and The Food Warehouse, deciding to go to Morrisons instead.
News in July that the highly regarded Staniland was being brought in to work under Asda chief commercial officer Kris Comerford was seen as a major coup for the supermarket during a turbulent time for its management. Staniland had been due to start in a VP role in March next year.
However, he is now to be group trading director and member of the executive committee at Morrisons from February.
It will see group commercial director James Badger moving to a new role as group strategy and transformation director, Morrisons said today as it confirmed Staniland’s appointment, which had first been reported by The Grocer.
“Andrew is an exceptional talent and I am very pleased to welcome him to Morrisons as the strengthening of our senior team continues,” said Morrisons CEO Rami Baitiéh.
“Andrew has a very strong record from his recent senior roles at Iceland and Aldi, and has also worked at Morrisons before in a number of buying roles so he knows us well.
“I want to thank James Badger for the great contribution he has made in his latest role and I know that he will continue to make a real difference in his new role.”
Staniland joined Iceland in 2019 from Aldi, where he served as buying director for three years. He began his career as a buyer at Waitrose and has also previously worked for Morrisons, where he was a buyer-turned-manager from 2012 to 2016.
Touted in the past as a candidate for future CEO roles, he has become known for a no-nonsense approach. In 2020, he warned the frozen sector it had become associated with “cheap, low-quality junk food” in a speech at the British Frozen Food Federation business conference.
Staniland was the second senior figure Asda believed it had poached from Iceland within days in the summer, after the supermarket hired David Devany, who is due to be joining from in 2025 as its permanent VP of e-commerce.
Today, Asda appointed former Tesco.com home shopping boss Barney Burgess as its VP online until the arrival of Devany.
The news comes after Asda chair and interim CEO Stuart Rose last week announced sweeping management cutbacks at its head offices, involving nearly 500 redundancies.
Lord Rose said Asda had been making progress in its search for a new CEO, a post that has been vacant since the departure of Roger Burnley in 2021.
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