The People Champions

Anna Blackburn
Managing director, Beaverbrooks 

Anna Blackburn has risen through the ranks of Beaverbrooks having joined the family-owned jewellery and watch retailer 25 years ago as a graduate trainee. She became the company’s first female boss and first non-family member to run the business in 2013.

Under her leadership, Beaverbrooks clocked up an operating profit of £35.3m in the year to February 2022 – more than doubling the £16.3m generated the previous year – while group sales jumped 64.4% year on year to £202.4m.

Yet it is her people focus that sees Blackburn recognised among the Retail 100, particularly in overseeing her 1,200 colleagues’ wellbeing and income amid the cost-of-living crisis. In October 2022, she gave a one-off £500 payment to all staff, alongside the annual tradition of giving an extra week’s salary in December.

Mental health is a priority – management receive awareness training and staff are offered wellbeing support via the Retail Trust.

Blackburn’s work has not gone unnoticed – Beaverbrooks won Happiest Place to Work at the Retail Week Awards 2023, having previously won Best Place to Work in 2020. 

Paula Coughlan
Chief people, communications and sustainability officer, Currys 

While Currys has endured turbulent trading over the past 12 months, Paula Coughlan’s work as chief people officer has been a beacon to the industry on how to support staff during the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.

Under her stewardship, Currys frontline staff have received a series of incentives to navigate inflationary price increases. In March, Currys unveiled its fourth staff pay rise in eight months with pay for store staff working in London topping £11.50 an hour.

Former vice-president and chief people strategy officer at McDonald’s, Coughlan has also invested in frontline staff training. New employees receive support for six months, while all staff can access skills development programmes and have uncapped bonus potential.

Elsewhere, Coughlan has used a pandemic “staff wake-up call” to launch an online wellbeing platform accessible to all, has trained 1,400 mental health first aiders and, in November last year, partnered with platform Champion Health to provide personalised health and wellbeing support not only to its 15,000 UK and Ireland staff but for their friends and family too. 

Helen Dickinson
Chief executive, British Retail Consortium

BRC leader Helen Dickinson has continued to be one of the most active voices advocating for the sector in what has been another tough year for UK retail.

Dickinson has championed several campaigns – most notably working for changes from the government to the industry’s ongoing bugbear with business rates; and pressing ahead with the BRC’s climate action focus, signing up more retailers to its Net Zero Roadmap. She has also been highlighting the appalling incidences of abuse and violence faced by UK retail workers.

Aside from her advocacy work, her ability to buoy the sector at a time when it is struggling to cope with the ongoing cost-of-living crisis has been essential.

The ongoing inflationary environment has made for tough trading, but Dickinson’s positivity has helped many retailers hold steady. In June she also stepped up support for digital transformation; announcing a partnership with innovation firm True to give members access to “cutting-edge technologies”.

With brighter skies hopefully on the horizon, Dickinson's leadership qualities will see the retail sector through the period ahead. 

Jonathan Hirst
Chief executive, Dreams 

In its first financial filing under the leadership of Jonathan Hirst, Dreams delivered its eighth consecutive year of growth when turnover climbed 8% to £387m for the year to December 2022, up from £358.5m in 2021.

It was a strong performance from which the chief executive, leading the business since January 2022, could start his tenure, coming just after Dreams entered a new period of ownership under Tempur Sealy. High on Hirst’s agenda has been improving product quality, allowing the brand to reduce return rates and drive up profitability.

Now Hirst is turning his attention to his staff. In November, he announced a £5m financial and wellbeing support package to help staff through the cost-of-living crisis, which included an annual pay increase from April 2023, discounts at selected supermarkets, access to a free out-of-hours GP service, and financial support and advice from the Retail Trust.

Also part of his plan to prioritise his staff, in January Hirst appointed Shelly Dickinson to the newly created role of head of people, tasked with driving a “people first” strategy.  

Martin Lewis
Founder, Moneysavingexpert.com

Martin Lewis makes his Retail 100 debut having amplified his voice to help consumers navigate better retail deals amid the cost-of-living crisis. The financial journalist, who founded Moneysavingexpert.com in 2003, has built a career advocating for the public, intervening on issues from energy to buy now pay later deals.

During the current economic difficulties, he has been ramping up pressure on the government, suggesting ways it can act to help households. In March this year, rallying against rising energy prices, he backed calls for a ‘social tariff’ to help save some 12 million lower-income households up to £1,500 on their bills.

He has also been helping protect consumer interests. In February, he offered advice for customers to get money-off savings with Asda and Lidl, while in August his team warned people against getting scammed by fake deals in the wake of Wilko’s collapse. Lewis is also vocal when he sees issues in business and banking he believes need tackling.

Last October, he criticised Deliveroo and Klarna’s partnership, which offered users a buy now pay later scheme to pay for food delivery. Lewis’ comments – questioning why Deliveroo needed to “pump debt to pay for takeaways” – garnered support from 16,000 people and prompted a response from Klarna.

Awarded a CBE in the 2022 New Year Honours list for services to consumer rights, Lewis is a worthy People Champion if ever there was one. 

Theo Paphitis
Chair, Theo Paphitis Retail Group

Theo Paphitis – owner of Ryman, Robert Dyas, Boux Avenue and the London Graphic Centre – has pulled off the not-so-small feat of bringing his key brands back into the black, in between lobbying the government on issues such as business rates. He is looking to prime minister Rishi Sunak to step up to help retail – last July he called on the leader “to support business, not f**k business”.

A vocal industry advocate, the common-sense approach that has become Paphitis’ business raison d'etre saw his retailers make a recovery from the pandemic. For the financial year to March 2022, stationer Ryman and hardware retailer Robert Dyas both returned to profits of £1.3m and £2.5m respectively, while Boux Avenue cut losses to £300,000. Paphitis has announced plans to re-energise the lingerie specialist with new stores and to automate its distribution centre – a move that will increase its capacity and improve efficiency.

Though he is buckled in for another rough ride ahead, Paphitis is confident that “customers still respond to retailers providing the right products, convenience and service” – a statement that could not better encapsulate the simple and sensible approach to shopkeeping for which he is famous.

Lord Stuart Rose
Chair, Asda

Retail titan Lord Rose returns to the Retail 100 list by virtue of his work not just as chair of Asda’s board – a role he has held since 2021 – but for his continued prominence as an advocate for retail and consumers.

He has been outspoken about issues facing the industry over the past 12 months. In May, he said the government owed a “debt of gratitude“ to retailers for keeping their prices down amid the cost-of-living crunch. In August, he slammed Michael Gove’s decision to block M&S’ plans for its Marble Arch store redevelopment, questioning why he was putting his “sticky fingers into it” when it was a “sensible” plan.

Unlike many high-profile retailers, Rose has also been outspoken on what he sees as the damage being done to the retail and business sector by Brexit. In January, he said Brexit has made Brits “suffer“ and been “catastrophic“ for the UK economy.

With Asda finding its feet under its new ownership of the Issa Brothers, Rose has become the de facto face of the brand. And now that the Issas have brought their EG Group business into the wider Asda group in a £2.2bn deal, Rose is heading up the new structure.

He may have more than 50 years of experience behind him – having started his retail career as a trainee manager with M&S in 1972 – but clearly, there is more to come from Rose.

Jason Tarry
Chief executive UK and Ireland, Tesco

Despite the pressures the inflationary environment is putting on retailers and suppliers alike, Tesco continues to march on in the UK and Ireland with total sales for the 13 weeks to May 27, 2023, up 8.8% on a like-for-like basis to £13.79bn. Boss Jason Tarry has been at the heart of it all.

One of his biggest priorities this past year has been supporting staff. Under his watch, Tesco invested over £230m in staff pay in February, the third pay rise for staff in the past 10 months, boosting its hourly rate to more than £11 per hour.

Pricing is key to Tarry’s strategy, too, and he has been supporting customers on value with Aldi Price Match, Low Everyday Prices and Clubcard Prices. Tarry has also overseen Tesco’s Save to Invest scheme, which is focused on reducing operating overheads. This includes a raft of changes to stores – announced in January – such as closing its remaining counter services across stores and cutting the number of team and lead managers in its superstores.

Tarry’s sterling work at Tesco saw his name bandied about at the start of the year as a potential replacement for David Potts in the top job at rival supermarket giant Morrisons, so watch this space…

Richard Walker
Executive chair, Iceland

Richard Walker has led frozen food specialist Iceland through another turbulent year, delivering better-than-expected performance guidance and improving its chances of a £750m refinancing in the process. Iceland posted revenues just short of £3bn in the nine months to December 2022, a 5.6% increase on the same period the previous year.

This performance led to him being promoted in January to executive chair, taking over from his father and Iceland founder Malcolm Walker.

In July Walker told bondholders he anticipates Iceland’s profit this year would be its highest yet; above the £176m it made in 2021. This growth has been bolstered by Walker’s commitment to helping customers manage inflation by freezing the price of hundreds of products at £1 and giving customers over 60 a further 10% discount on Tuesdays.

Walker remains one of retail’s most outspoken leaders on issues ranging from social to sustainability. In August, he defied UK laws when he announced Iceland would be accepting food bank vouchers, loyalty points and gift cards for purchases of infant formula and he called on the government to change the law.

It came as little surprise then that in 2022 Walker threw his hat into the ring to stand as a Conservative MP at the next general election, a role he expects to be able to manage while continuing his duties at Iceland. In November, Walker signed a letter from the Retail Jobs Alliance to chancellor Jeremy Hunt urging for a business rates freeze – an indication of what Walker’s mandate would be if he were elected.

David Wood
Chief executive, Wickes

Wickes chief executive David Wood has led the DIY giant to glory since it parted from Travis Perkins two years ago. Much of his focus has been to invest in people and property.

In November 2022, he brought forward a company pay review to reward staff with a collective £3.5m pay rise to help them through the cost-of-living crisis. He has also overseen greater pay parity – Wickes was among the most improved retailers for gender pay equality in 2022, according to data submitted to the Government Equalities Office, with a reduction of -6.2.

Also in November, Wood announced a major store-opening programme to address gaps in its estate. The first new store in three years opened in Bolton in October and marked the first of 20 new locations over the next five years.

Wood’s balanced approach has spread the business across three key pillars: trade, DIY and Do It For Me – which served it especially well when the DIY cooldown began post-pandemic. Wood posted record sales in 2022, up 1.6% to £1.56bn, but rising interest rates and rampant inflation hit pre-tax profits, which fell 11.3% to £75.4m.