Tesco appoints Dixons Carphone’s John Allan as chairman
Tesco has appointed John Allan, the former chairman of Dixons Retail, to succeed Richard Broadbent as its new chairman. He will take up his new role on 1 March.
Allan became chairman of Dixons Retail in 2009 then became a deputy chairman of Dixons Carphone following the merger of Dixons and Carphone Warehouse last year. He is also chairman of Barratt Developments and chairman of Worldpay.
He began his career in marketing roles before spending eight years at Fine Fare, a subsidiary of ABF, where he was the retail director for marketing, buying and retail operations. His other past positions include chief executive of logistics company Exel before its acquisition by Deutsche Post in 2005. He then joined the board of Deutsche Post and subsequently became chief financial officer of the company in 2007.
Tesco’s outgoing chairman Richard Broadbent will step down on 1 March.
Patrick Cescau, Tesco senior independent director, said: “Following a deep and thorough process run by a committee of independent non-executive directors, the board unanimously agreed that John Allan was the right candidate to chair Tesco at this important time. On behalf of the board I would like to thank Richard for his work as chairman. He has served the business with unflinching commitment through a period of unprecedented change, and put in place a new senior leadership team for the next stage of Tesco’s development.”
Following his appointment to the Tesco board, Allan will step down from the boards of Dixons Carphone and Royal Mail. He will also resign his role as a senior advisor to Alix Partners and will step down as chair of the DHL UK Foundation as soon as a successor is found. He is expected to continue in his other roles as chairman of Barratt Developments and WorldPay.
Allan said: “I’m very pleased to be taking on this role at such a critical moment for the business and look forward to working with the new executive team and the board.”
