M&S boss Steve Rowe to step down after six years
M&S has announced its CEO Steve Rowe will step down after six years at the helm of the supermarket.
Rowe will leave his role at the company’s preliminary results on 25 May as part of a planned succession programme, the supermarket revealed on Thursday afternoon.
He will be replaced by Stuart Machin, who will become chief executive, and Katie Bickerstaffe as co-chief executive. While Machin will take on responsibility for the daily leadership of the business and the executive committee, Bickerstaffe will focus on the supermarket’s omnichannel, digital and data future.
Eoin Tonge will also become chief strategy and finance officer.
After joining the company at 15, Rowe took on the gig as chief executive in 2016, when the supermarket was experiencing a tumultuous performance.
The supermarket credited Rowe with many accomplishments, including a joint venture with Ocado, doubling clothing and home online penetration, and the revival of the food business.
Rowe described his stint leading the supermarket as “an enormous privilege” and said leaving would be “in many ways very difficult for me.”
It was now the right time to pass on the baton after “six hard years,” he said.
Rowe added: “I am enormously grateful for the support I have had in driving through the extraordinary transformation programme of the last few years from shareholders, the board, but most of all the many thousands of colleagues in the business.
“A piece of my heart will always remain with the M&S family, and I feel that we have done many of the hard yards to restore the business to what it should be.”
More to follow…