“Oxford graduate with street-fighting reputation” |
| Oxford graduate with street-fighting reputation Posted: 08 Feb 2011 03:01 PM PST , 23:01, Tuesday 8 February 2011 Laura Wade-Gery developed a reputation as a streetfighter at a young age. After graduating from Oxford, she was immortalised in her friend William Dalrymple's first travel book, In Xanadu, in which he recounts her single-handedly seeing off a Delhi street gang. People who have worked with her praise her "direct" and "punchy" style, while noting this might not go down so well at Marks and Spencer (LSE: MKS.L - news) . One former colleague describes her as "a blunt negotiator . . . M&S will have had to get the cheque book out," he says. Ms Wade-Gery's defection from Tesco (LSE: TSCO.L - news) could be seen as a sideways move. M&S's online business is far smaller than Tesco's. Had she stayed, she would have become commercial director of the grocer's non-food empire next month, presiding over Tesco Direct, which is on target to hit full-year revenues of £500m. Her exit is embarrassing for Tesco, which trumpeted her elevation only a month ago. Marc Bolland, chief executive of M&S, had been seeking to appoint a big hitter to run the online business for six months. Earlier this month, Dave Hughes, the head of M&S Direct, announced he was stepping down to join Game as chief marketing officer. Had he perhaps seen Ms Wade-Gery coming? Contemporaries believe it was Ms Wade-Gery's lack of international experience that saw Tesco's Philip Clarke pip her to the top job last year. She (news) was a "natural fit" inside Tesco's relatively flat management culture, according to a former colleague, and in common with many of her fellow directors has an obsessive love of running. Tesco chief executives tend to have a long tenure and Ms Wade-Gery is not one to wait around. She is already being touted as a successor to Mr Bolland. But her departure has revived memories of the "brain drain" Tesco experienced in 2007, when former online boss John Browett quit to run Dixons and Tesco Direct head Steve Robinson became chief executive of online fashion brand MandMDirect. The departures of Julia Reynolds, who created Tesco's Florence & Fred clothing brand, and of development director Dido Harding, now chief executive of TalkTalk, followed soon after. Since Mr Clarke's appointment was announced last June, Colin Holmes, Tesco's fresh food director, has quit. A fortnight ago, Lance Batchelor, the head of Tesco Mobile, was named as chief executive of Domino's Pizza. "Tesco will do what they've always done in the past - close ranks and move on," said Nick Bubb, retail analyst at Arden Partners. "They lose good people, but they recruit good people." This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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