Marks & Spencer, a multinational retailer has announced that its CEO, Steve Rowe, will step down from his role on May 25 this year.
He will be replaced by M&S Food Director and Chief Operating Officer (COO) Stuart Machin, and Katie Bickerstaffe, who is currently joint COO will become Co-CEO.
Rowe, who joined M&S at the age of 15 before rising through the ranks, will step down after the food and clothing retailer reports annual results on May 25.
However, he has agreed to remain as an adviser to the new leadership for up to twelve months.
M&S said in a statement that the current joint chief operating officers, Stuart Machin and Katie Bickerstaffe, will take over Row’s responsibilities in an unconventional structure. Machin will become CEO and will take on responsibility for the day-to-day leadership of the business and the executive committee.
He will continue to have oversight of his current portfolio of responsibilities, which includes the leadership of M&S’s food business, as well as operations, property, store development, and technology. He will take on responsibility for human resources and corporate communications.
Bickerstaffe will become Co-CEO with a particular focus on driving M&S’ strategy of selling across multiple platforms.
She will retain her existing portfolio including responsibility for clothing and home, MS2- International Business and Financial Services. Both Machin and Bickerstaffe will join M&S’s PLC board on May 25.
Rowe will cease full-time employment after M&S’s annual shareholders’ meeting on July 5 but remain an adviser for up to a year.
Marks and Spencer Group plc is a major British multinational retailer with headquarters in London, England, that specializes in selling clothing, home products, and food products.
M&S opened its first store in India in 2001 and in April 2008 signed a Joint Venture with Reliance Retail to form Marks & Spencer Reliance India Pvt Ltd. It now has 36 stores located in Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, Amritsar, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai, Kerala, and Hyderabad.
