M&S marketing supremo Bousquet-Chavanne is latest exec headed for exit

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Apr 18, 2018

M&S has announced the next step in its ongoing reorganisation plan and also the departure of marketing head and long-serving board member Patrick Bousquet-Chavanne. He is currently executive director of customer, marketing and M&S.com and will step down at the end of next month.

The UK retail giant said that as it continues its programme “to reorganise into a family of accountable businesses,” the corporate marketing teams will be devolved into the Clothing & Home and Food businesses. 

Bousquet-Chavanne, who has served on the board for the last six years will be leaving the business once this is complete.

In a release Wednesday, the retailer said that “a central plan of this first stage of M&S's transformation programme is to move towards a faster, more commercial M&S built around a family of accountable businesses, each with its own top calibre leadership.” 

This means that much of corporate marketing will now report to the managing directors of Clothing & Home and Food, under Jill McDonald and Stuart Machin respectively. First steps towards this have already been taken with the appointment of Nathan Ansell to run Clothing & Home marketing and Sharry Cramond to head up Food marketing.

A streamlined central marketing team “looking after the digital information and data services that support both main businesses and also the oversight of new development businesses, primarily in the digital space, will be retained,” M&S added. 

CEO Steve Rowe said of Bousquet-Chavanne’s time at the company: "Patrick has overseen some extraordinary marketing programmes for M&S corporately and made great strides in laying the foundations of our digital business as well as extending our Plan A credentials. He brought great brand marketing skills and creativity to the business. We thank him for his contribution and wish him well for the future.”

Meanwhile, Bousquet-Chavanne had told his Twitter followers just before the news was officially announced, saying: "Extremely proud of the accomplishments of an amazing team of talented marketing, digital and sustainability colleagues that I have been privileged to lead over the past 6 years. You all gave it a purpose!"