Chairman and chief executive quit Mamas & Papas

Huddersfield nursery retailer Mamas & Papas has been hit by a double blow with the departure of its chief executive and chairman.

Both Jonathon Fitzgerald and chairman Derek Lovelock (pictured above) have quit their roles according to Retail Week.

Current chief operating officer Jason Greenwood has been appointed as interim chief executive.

Fitzgerald was formerly at Matalan and Target Australia. He joined Mamas & Papas in 2014 as chief commercial officer, before being appointed as CEO in December 2016.

Derek Lovelock left the business in April 2017 according to his LinkedIn profile, and he is currently non-executive chairman of clothes retailer Jack Wills.

A statement from the business, which is backed by private equity firm BlueGem Capital Partners, said that Fitzgerald and Lovelock had completed the turnaround of the business after it entered a Company Voluntary Arrangement in 2014.

Earlier this year Mamas & Papas announced that it had experienced double-digit growth in the run up to Christmas 2016 with like-for-like sales up 11% for the 13 weeks to 25 December.

For the year to 27 March 2016, operating profits nearly quadrupled to £5.5m, with UK sales reaching £99.8m, down from £107.8m the year before, as the number of UK stores almost halved during the year to 32 as part of a comprehensive restructure of the business.

Mamas & Papas added to its top team earlier this year with the appointments of Neil Summer as head of ecommerce and marketing, Paul Middlemiss as product director and Julie Rossiter as quality director.