Dame Joan Withers: The Warehouse Group Chair on the company getting a new CEO

The Warehouse Group has appointed a new CEO after a lengthy search to fill the role.

Mark Stirton, who joined the company in April last year, will head the group from August 1.

Chair Dame Joan Withers says Stirton has basically completed a one-year job interview - and has continued to impress the board.

"Rather than just anoint someone internally, we went through that thorough process so that we could be absolutely confident we got the best possible person for the job."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now the warehouse has finally found a new CEO after
a year of searching. The CFO, Mark Sterton has been
announced as the replacement. He's going to take over in August,
and the chair, Dame Joan Withers, is with me. Now,
how Joan, how are you?

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Heather?

Speaker 1 (00:13):
I'm very well. Thank you. Know, you searched for a year,
you went around the world, you ended up back in
your own place.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
What happened, Well, we didn't search for a year. When
we appointed JJ into the old John Jana early last year.
He came on board in May, it was clear that
there was a lot that needed to be done, so
Joj really worked on the heavy lifting. We were moving
away from an agile organizational structure to a different way

(00:39):
of working.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
That took time.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
We obviously had to refocus business priorities, and when the
board put him in as interim group chief executive, we
said you're not babysitting, You've got some heavy lifting to
do here, and he did that. So we didn't actually
start looking for a new CEO until late last calendar year.
So yes, we did do a comprehensive and thorough multi

(01:03):
market search. And I'm delighted because we've come back to
a scenario where Mark Sterton, who was appointed in April
last year as the group CFO, has basically been doing
a one year job interview and has continued to impress
the board. But rather than just annoyed someone internally, we

(01:24):
went through that thorough process so that we could be
absolutely confident we've got the best possible person for the job,
and that's Mark.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Do you think your company has turned a corner.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
I certainly think so. And you know, the economy is
still bouncing along the bottom. It's very very tough out there.
I think the Warehouse was really at the bleeding edge
of what happened in terms of the economy. I think
other companies are starting to see that. But internally, the
fundamentally important work that JJ has done has meant that

(01:59):
we are much better focused. And obviously we are totally
reliant on serving our one and a half million customers
every week with the best possible products at the best
possible prices. And that's been his focus and we're certainly
going down that track. And we're starting to see some
green shoots.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, good stuff. And are you seeing green shoots in
the economy.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
It's a little bit early to say, you know, at
the moment. The other complexity is the weather. So it's
been warm. We had a few cold days the week
before last, and immediately we saw a massive uptick. So
it's just hard to say. I hope today's OCR announcement
gives a bit of further impetus to people's getting out

(02:47):
there and using some of that discretionary spend, but it's
still going to be a grind I think for the
next six months.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
When you talk about the weather, you're talking about the
fact that it's basically nobody's been incentivized to go and
buy winding. Yeah that's the problem.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Right exactly. Yeah, you know, when you get a cold snap,
it really makes a difference. So we're just hoping it'll
come in the next few weeks.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Hey, I'm just interested. You talked about moving from an
agile business. What did you move to.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
We're back to a more I guess you'd say traditional
organizational structure, but very much brand focused. So, as you're
probably aware, we went down the whole omnichannel route with
what happened over COVID and what we thought would be
the move to online obviously didn't play out in the
way that we and many other retailers anticipated. So we're

(03:37):
very focused now on our three core brands. You will
know that, you know, sort of eighteen months ago now
we let Torpedo seven go, we closed down thems dot com.
So we're really focused on making sure that those brands
have the resources and the leadership they need to super
serve their target markets.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Joan, what's your take on agile?

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Look, we were at the bleeding edge as well on that.
There weren't really any retailers in the world. Walmart had
flirted with it. We did go around the world and
have a look at where it was working. It was interesting.
I was in the US a year ago and got
some time at Microsoft. Was sat in Adella and I
asked him about Agile and what was happening in the
States with it, and he says, well, we've still got Agile,

(04:22):
but we call it Franken Frankenstein agile now. So everybody's
doing their own thing, and at Microsoft they're using AI
agents as part of the Agile squads, so everybody's doing
it a bit differently. It just didn't work for us,
and you know, when that happens, you've got to act quickly.
So again, back to John Jenay and the work he did.

(04:44):
Changing an organizational structure is not easy and we needed
to get all of that done before we put a
new CEO.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Joan, it's wonderful to talk to you. Thank you for
your time. That's Dame Joan with his chair of the
Warehouse Group. For more from Heather duplessy Ellen Drove. Listen
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