Halfords poaches Dixons director to be new CEO
Halfords has poached fellow retailer Dixons Carphone's software boss, Graham Stapleton, to take up the chief executive role vacated by the soon-to-depart Jill McDonald.
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Halfords Group
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16:45 04/10/24
Stapleton, who will take up the role in mid-January and will be the retailer's third CEO since 2012, currently heads up Dixons Carphone plc's software business, Honeybee, having previously run the Connected World Services division and been CEO of Carphone Warehouse UK & Ireland.
Halfords' chief financial officer Jonny Mason will stand in as interim CEO until Stapleton arrives.
Stapleton, who has a long history in the retail industry with prior management roles at Kingfisher and Marks & Spencer, said Halfords had a "market leading brand that strongly resonates with me and the UK public" and that he was looking forward to starting to he could "continue to implement the service-led strategy and, over time, identify further growth potential".
Chairman Dennis Millard highlighted Stapleton's experience in "retail, digital, services and category credentials" that made him the best candidate.
"We set out our "Moving up a Gear" strategy just under 2 years ago and Graham will continue to drive its implementation and pursue our service-led, growth strategy. We are delighted to have recruited Graham who will be able to build on what we've achieved over the last few years and we all look forward to working with him."
Halfords shares were up more than 1% to 318.2p on top of a small rise late the previous day.
Analyst Kate Calvert at Investec said the new man "may not be well-known in the public market, but he comes with an excellent customer service, digital and retail skill-set" and appeared to be a good match to evolve corporate strategy further, rather than change course.
She said the continuation of the 'Moving up a Gear' strategy "should help reassure investors".
Calvert noted that he joins a business with good momentum, with retail like-for-like sales up 3.5% for the 20 weeks to mid August, and the potential of a £40m profit upgrade ‘gift’ if the impact of forex is fully recovered, as the current team believes it can be.