CEO Nick Badminton is resigning from the board of Pick n Pay at the end of this financial year.
Pick n Pay announced on Wednesday 8 February that CEO Nick Badminton would resign from the board of Pick n Pay effective the end of the financial year but would be available to assist the company and its chairman in the transition period.
Said Badminton: “When I came in as CEO, we became singularly focused on the transformation of Pick n Pay. This transformation was centred on winning with our customers. It included improving our product offer and our stores, which necessitated large investments in our operations, particularly the implementation of SAP and centralised distribution. We also converted Score to Pick n Pay. The most important and significant changes necessary to transform Pick n Pay have now either been made, or are well advanced in their implementation.
“I feel that I’ve now completed what I set out to do and looking ahead, it’s an appropriate time for the board to select a new CEO, and with the executive team, to continue rolling out and embedding the changes the business needs to make.
“After turning 50 last year and 32 years with the company, five as CEO and six before that as Retail MD, and with the business firmly on the path to recovery, I think that it’s a good time for me to take a sabbatical to spend some quality time with my family and my bicycle.“
During the global search for a new CEO, Pick n Pay chairman Gareth Ackerman will move to executive chairman responsible for company strategy and working with the leadership team to embed the changes in the business, while preparing the company for succession. Deputy CEO Richard van Rensburg will assume day-to-day operational responsibility, backed by the dynamic team of executives at the company to further implement changes in Pick n Pay. The search will include internal candidates and external candidates, both local and international.
Said Ackerman: “Nick had an incredibly tough job to do. It’s difficult enough transforming a company of our size and scale to the degree required, but to run the business at the same time and right in the middle of what has been the most serious recession in decades – and with an international competitor coming in - was particularly tough.
“With his team, he has executed the turnaround extremely well, and during his tenure, there have been a number of particularly notable achievements and milestones which he led. Some of these include:
2007 • Successfully implemented SAP to modernise and upgrade Pick n Pay’s operations and systems. • Initiated the central distribution journey – a critical step forward, and opened the Longmeadow distribution centre in Johannesburg. • Began the successful transition of Score stores to Pick n Pay and Boxer, which has had very positive results.
2008 • Successfully refreshed and upgraded Fresh Food and Private Label. • Changed the entire look and feel of Pick n Pay, reinvigorating the brand.
2009 • Successfully completed the rollout of SAP
2010
• Increased efficiency by merging three operating regions to form a new Inland Region. • Launched a Goods Not For Resale programme to reduce operating costs. • Streamlined the Group Executive team. • Expanded Longmeadow Distribution Centre. • Launched our Africa expansion by opening first store in Zambia. Since then, we have also opened in Mauritius and Mozambique, with Malawi to follow soon. 2011 • Launched South Africa’s first major grocery chain loyalty programme, smart shopper. Our target was three million customers signed up in one year, and this was achieved in three months. We are now at 4.7 million customers in 11 months. • Disposed of our Australian operation Franklins. • Negotiated settlement with SACCAWU to increase workforce flexibility. • Implemented a category-based buying structure. • Appointed Richard van Rensburg to help push our transformation process still further and faster.
2012 • Recruited international retail expert Helmut Hoerz to head up the merchandise function, announced at the same time that Peter Arnold would move to head up Food Merchandising.
Said Ackerman: “Nick leaves behind a very stable, focused and highly experienced executive team, and the transformation strategy which he spearheaded is now very clearly set out and implementation well under way. This will accelerate even more strongly in this interim period.
“I would like to thank Nick for his extraordinarily hard work and he has the very best wishes from all of us at Pick n Pay. He’s worked really hard in turning around some very difficult systems and procedures and we are now in an incomparably better position to become a truly world class retailer than we were five years ago."
