British retail group Marks & Spencer Group Plc announced the departure of co-CEO Katie Bickerstaffe on Thursday.
The manager will leave the company at the end of the upcoming annual general meeting in July, the retailer said. After completing the most recent structural reforms, she wanted to concentrate on her board mandates at other companies and organizations in the future, as planned, the reason given was.
Bickerstaffe joined Marks & Spencer in 2018 as a non-executive director and moved to operational management in 2020. In 2021 she took over the position of Co-Chief Operating Officers (COO). In May 2022, she was appointed co-CEO alongside new CEO Stuart Machin.
In this role, she managed several business areas and has also been responsible for digitization projects on an interim basis since last summer. The retailer had already announced at the end of January that Rachel Higham would be responsible for this area as Chief Digital and Technology Officer from the coming financial year.
Bickerstaffe explained that she sees her role in the group as fulfilled after the recent changes. “It was my intention to support the transformation of M&S to the next level. “We have built a strong team and made great progress, and now it is time for the leaders of each organizational unit to report directly to Stuart,” she said in a statement.