LONDON (Reuters) -British retailer Marks & Spencer on Thursday named Roger Burnley, the former boss of supermarket Asda, as a non-executive director, beefing-up the board’s food expertise after Justin King, the former boss of Sainsbury’s, stepped down last month.
Burnley was chief executive of Asda for three years until 2021 and prior to that was chief operating officer. Before joining Asda he was retail and operations director at Sainsbury’s. He will join M&S on December 1.
“Roger brings extensive experience in the food retail industry and supply chain transformation which will be invaluable as we enter the next phase of our plan to reshape M&S for growth,” M&S chairman Archie Norman said.
Earlier this month, M&S, which is recovering from a damaging cyber hack in April, said it had extended Norman’s tenure as chairman for three more years from September 2026.
Prior to the cyberattack, M&S was beginning to reap the benefits of a comprehensive turnaround plan that has been running since 2022, with the group achieving its highest annual profit performance in over 15 years in its 2024/25 year.
M&S will report first-half results on November 5.
(Reporting by James Davey, Editing by Paul Sandle)
