Thinus Keeve, a former Coles senior executive, has been appointed by M&S to the newly formed position of retail director. Keeve, who starts on June 6th, will oversee central store operations in addition to all of the retail behemoth’s locations in the UK and the Republic of Ireland.
He will report to Sacha Berendji, the operations director of M&S, who will continue to be in charge of the company’s retail, security, property, and business continuity departments.
Keeve comes from Australia, where he worked for Coles, the nation’s second-biggest supermarket chain, in a variety of positions, most recently as chief sustainability, property, and export officer.
M&S CEO Stuart Machin says Thinus comes to the company from Australia, where he has spent a large portion of his career and had a number of high-level leadership roles at Coles. All M&S stores in the UK and ROI, as well as Central Store Operations, will fall under Thinus’s purview.
In order to ensure that stores remain at the forefront of our decision-making process across M&S, he will first join the ExCo team in July.
After purchasing twelve former Homebase locations, M&S plans to establish two further 18,000 square foot stores in Abingdon and Cannock later this year.
The retailer’s store rotation program, which aims to establish “bigger, better” locations, will heavily rely on the new sites, which will generate over 550 employment.
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