The People Champions
Retail leaders who are voices and ambassadors for the industry, actively campaigning for retail staff and customers, promoting inclusivity, and driving culture and purpose
Chris Brook-Carter, CEO, Retail Trust
A new entrant on the Retail 100, Retail Trust chief executive Chris Brook-Carter’s relentless championing of people has intensified as the industry’s need to safeguard employees has escalated.
The Retail Trust is a charity that advocates for the industry. Its role in protecting people in retail has taken on even greater importance over the past 12 months as crime has soared to worrying heights.
Brook-Carter has campaigned for safer working environments for retail workers. That has included research revealing that as many as one in three retail workers experience verbal or physical abuse every week, making them stressed and anxious about going to work, and leading to their working environments feeling unsafe.
The BRC Crime Report 2025 showed there were around 737,000 incidents of violence and abuse in 2023/24, a 55% increase from the previous year.
Brook-Carter campaigned for changes to the law to introduce a new crime of assaulting a retail worker, punishable by up to six months in prison, as well as harsher penalties for shoplifting.
Helen Dickinson, CEO, British Retail Consortium
“It has been a long time since a Budget was quite as challenging to retail as this one,” wrote Helen Dickinson in November 2024, following changes to employer national insurance contributions and the national living wage, which were set to deeply impact businesses big and small. In such a climate, Dickinson’s advocacy for the industry will be even more crucial.
But while many elements of the Budget were unwelcome for retailers, she noted, there were some bright spots. UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves earmarked more cash to tackle retail crime, a cause close to Dickinson’s heart, after she campaigned for years for a specific crime of assaulting a retail worker to be introduced. It was, finally, last year.
Her sights are now firmly set on tariffs, with calls on the government to make changes that will shield the UK from “dumping” of products from China and elsewhere that can no longer easily be sold into the US.
Jo Hayward, VP mobility and convenience retail, BP UK
Jo Hayward enters the Retail 100 for the first time, having taken over responsibility for the petrol company’s retail sites in April 2024.
Her appointment came “at a pivotal time”, as BP began to grow its UK retail business, the company said, amid changes to customers’ energy needs as more people begin to use electric and hybrid cars, and with a view to “transforming forecourt convenience”.
Hayward, who was formerly the company’s VP for convenience in Europe, took over management of a network of 1,150 retail sites in the UK.
That means she oversees a 6,700-strong team, many working late hours in isolated locations. Safety was Hayward’s “top priority” coming into the role, she said. BP has been investing in the security of its retail staff through the rollout of body-worn cameras in stores facing “higher levels of abuse and crime,” as well as introducing the Auror retail crime intelligence platform to its 300 convenience stores.
Protecting staff goes hand-in-hand with improving the experience for the other group of people most important to its success: customers. Evidence of the revamp is beginning to show in redesigned locations such as the Hammersmith branch, which is now equipped with a range of coffees and other products, including made-to-order breakfasts from Wild Bean Cafe, as well as food and other groceries from its successful M&S partnership.
There’s even some seating by the window to cater to those who are using the EV chargers and want to have lunch or work from the location.
Matt Hood, MD, Co-op Food
While a recent cyber attack and subsequent empty shelves threatened to derail Co-op after a stellar year, Matt Hood returns to the Retail 100 having proved his Strategist credentials and this time, earned the accolade of People Champion.
Staff in Co-op stores, which have suffered from an increase in crime, are at the sharp end of a spike that has coincided with the cost-of-living crisis. Hood has been relentlessly campaigning on retail crime, with the result that the specific offence of assaulting a shop worker has been announced for England and Wales, following the introduction of a similar law in Scotland. Co-op won the Responsible Retailer prize at Retail Week’s 2025 awards.
Hood has also overseen an overhaul of The Co–op’s membership scheme, which currently numbers 5.5 million, setting a target of 8 million by 2030. The retailer introduced its “biggest ever” price drop in March 2025.
Hood’s expertise is reflected in robust numbers. Pre-tax profit soared to £161m during the full year to January 4, 2025, up from £28m the previous year for the group. In the food business, revenue was up 1.9% (while it was flat in the overall business) and online food sales rose 46% to £460m.
Henrik Nordvall, CEO, H&M UK
Henrik Nordvall enters the Retail 100 in 2025 in large part due to his focus on people and company culture at H&M. Nordvall, who oversees 6,000 people, is determined to recharge H&M with a strong focus on employees.
“The retail industry is for everyone, it’s inclusive and diverse, and it employs a lot of young people,” Nordvall told the BRC podcast last year. “It’s a great way to get into your professional career.”
Nordvall speaks highly of the UK retail market, considering it to be one of the most important in H&M's global portfolio. He has been focused on investing in store experience, valuing the role of bricks and mortar in the customer journey. In 2024, H&M opened its ‘brand infuser’ concept store in Chelsea, the first of its kind in Europe. Speaking to the Swedish Chamber of Commerce in 2025, Nordvall talked about the need in UK retail to "shout loudly" to grab customer attention, and is steering new ways to engage with H&M shoppers, while maintaining its purpose-led focus on sustainability and diversity and inclusion.
Nordvall also revealed the practical measures he has put in place to help colleagues climb the ladder when he gave the keynote speech at Retail Week’s People and Leadership Summit 2025.
Theo Paphitis, chair, Theo Paphitis Retail Group
Theo Paphitis, head of the eponymous retail group comprising Boux Avenue, Ryman and Robert Dyas, is back in his People Champions spot on the Retail 100 after another year of outspoken support for the industry and those it employs.
It was Paphitis’ ongoing concern and support for retail staff that was at the heart of his call on the government to deliver the economic growth that will help business owners during a BBC Radio 5 interview in May 2025.
He explained that in his position employing four and a half thousand people, he has “livelihoods at stake, people’s mortgages and the bills they’ve got to pay at the supermarket,” and said that the increasing costs facing retail will be “very hard to deal with”.
In his own ventures, he was able to report a first-ever profit for Boux Avenue, as a result of improved marketing and product. At Ryman, where he is celebrating 30 years of ownership this year, there was a return to profitability for the first time since the pandemic. Paphitis, who praised “the passion and resilience of shopkeepers,” still brings exactly that passion to his businesses.
Richard Walker, executive chair, Iceland
A year or two ago, Iceland was struggling. Its frozen food business model was saddled with the cost of running shopfuls of freezers as energy costs spiralled. But executive chairman Richard Walker has effectively piloted the retailer through turbulence and come out the other side with strong financials and a continued focus on people.
Underlying profits climbed 24% to £315.7m in the year to March 29, 2024, the business reported, while sales were up 6.6% to £4.2bn (the performance benefited from the fact that the year included an additional reporting week). Energy costs had begun to fall, the retailer said, while shoppers responded positively to Iceland’s £1 range of chips and other foods.
Walker, meanwhile, continued his personal trend of outspokenness and attention to both staff and customers. Walker spoke out about laws preventing retailers from sharing CCTV footage of shoplifters online, and the chain reached out to people made redundant from other supermarket chains to apply for one of 600 open positions.
Iceland also used a listening exercise with thousands of customers as the basis for a “supermarket manifesto,” a first of its kind. And Walker has been busy with partnerships and innovation too, pushing into retail media, launching 800 new lines with partners including Jamie Oliver and TGI Fridays and entering a trial venture in partnership with Wilko over the last 12 months.