Wilko makes senior changes as it installs CEO

Nottinghamshire-headquartered Wilko has appointed a CEO to lead the company.

Jerome Saint-Marc has been promoted to the position and will join a board made up of family director and chair Lisa Wilkinson, chief finance officer Alex Russo and non-executive directors Chris Martin and Dalton Philips.

Lisa Wilkinson said; “As group transformation director, Jerome is already a high performing and widely respected member of our leadership team and has played a key role in both the development and delivery of our long-term strategy and programme of change. More recently he’s taken on greater commercial responsibility as managing director of wilko.com. We’re confident this appointment set us up well to keep sorting the needs of hard-working families in their homes and gardens through greater product focus.”

Saint-Marc’s first act as CEO has been to make two senior appointments. Christian Ward has been appointed retail director, while Alison Hands has been promoted to the position of trading director.

Meanwhile, the move to a CEO leadership model will see Andrew Moore step down as chief commercial officer.

Saint-Marc said: “I’m excited by the privilege and opportunity this role brings. It’s the brief of a lifetime to work with a household brand that is 90 years young, to transform it to meet the needs of consumers today in their homes and gardens and to lead one of the biggest private family owned companies in the UK. For all the challenges facing UK retail today at wilko we still believe Britain is a nation of shopkeepers and shoppers and still believe the high street has an important role to play in helping local communities to thrive.

“I see my job as building a strong team here at wilko; a team intent on aligning to deliver great value to our customers, meeting their needs, helping them to get their jobs done in their homes and gardens through product that simply helps with respect for their hard-earned cash delivered to them in an omnichannel way.”