Whitbread searching for new CEO as Alison Brittain plans to step aside
The hospitality powerhouse behind Premier Inn is hunting for a chief executive to replace Alison Brittain.
Brittain is readying to step aside from her role heading Whitbread, following seven years in the top job, according to The Sunday Times.
Headhunters at Spencer Stuart have been hired by Whitbread to find a suitable replacement for Brittain.
Brittain is one of just nine female bosses to lead a FTSE 100 company at the moment. Her career highlights including overseeing the sale of the Costa coffee chain to Coca-Cola for £3.9bn in 2019.
The newspaper has identified John Rogers, the finance director of WPP, as one of the early candidates for the role.
Rogers’ CV features a stint as CEO at Sainsbury’s Argos, between 2016 and 2019, after helping to oversee the supermarket’s acquisition of the catalogue retailer.
Whitbread saw total UK sales drop 4.4 per cent year-on-year in the six weeks to 6 January. Sales were brought down by a 17.2 per cent slump in food and drink revenues due to fears over the Omicron variant.