The Co-operative Group has always been a pioneering organisation, and its approach to leadership and management is no exception

Group Secretary Moira Lees outlines its appointment of four professional Non-Executive Directors to its Food and Specialist Businesses subsidiary boards.

A much-loved brand name on the high street and in local communities, The Co-operative Group has achieved some amazing milestones in recent years. It is now Britain’s fifth largest food retailer, third largest pharmacy chain and largest funeral services provider. It currently has 15 different businesses, over 5,400 outlets and 113,000 people, and an annual turnover of £13.7 billion.

Although The Co-operative Group’s business model – it is owned by its 5.1 million plus members – and its ethos have not changed since the movement was founded in Rochdale in 1844. It now faces the same strategic challenges as any major public or private company.

“Over the past few years, our businesses have gone through significant change, including the introduction of a new flexible corporate structure, en route to achieving our vision of becoming the best co-operative business in the world," explained Moira Lees.

“However, we never forget that our members are our owners – they tell us what is important to them; we listen and act on it”

“We do this democratically through our network of elected Directors who represent members and work alongside our Group Executive team.

The Co-operative Financial Services business has had independent professional Non-Executive Directors for several years, and they have brought real benefits to its operations. It made sense to extend this to our Food and Specialist Businesses subsidiary boards, appointing two non-execs to each.”

After a competitive tender including several of the country’s top executive search consultancies, the team of Joëlle Warren, Sue Tyrer and Estelle Woods was given the brief to find the new non-execs.

“Unlike the other consultancies, Warren Partners advised us to use advertising, as well as executive search, to ensure we reached the widest possible candidate pool,” said Moira.

“This chimed well with our wish to make sure we got the best people for the job and that the whole process was very transparent. Any concern we may have had about using a smaller boutique was soon dispelled as they quickly demonstrated that they could source a very wide range of candidates.

In all, we had over 400 applications for the roles, which was very flattering but also rather daunting. Warren Partners added real value by filtering the applications down to a sensible level, and it helped that they knew and understood us from a previous assignment supporting the merger of Britannia Building Society with Co-operative Financial Services.

They followed a very slick, well-structured process, with clear timelines indicating when a long list, shortlist and all the candidate details would be available. I was managing the appointments alongside our Group Chairman, and regular updates enabled us to plan effectively for the interview panel stage, which involved quite a number of our elected member representatives. In fact, I felt very well looked after throughout the process, and the Warren Partners team delivered a tailored service which provided real value for money.

It was quite a challenge to find candidates with exactly the right skill sets, industry knowledge and also a real commitment to The Co-operative Group's values of integrity, fairness and social responsibility.”

“Ultimately, we were delighted to be able to appoint four excellent people from a very strong shortlist”

The new Non-Execs on the Food subsidiary board are John Longworth, who currently works in the commercial and marketing sectors within healthcare and was a former board member of both Tesco and Asda; and Euan Sutherland, Chief Executive of Kingfisher UK, who has held senior roles at Superdrug, Matalan and Currys.

Penny Coates, Managing Director of East Midlands Airport and a member of the Manchester Airport Group Board, who has previously worked for Mars, Pepsico, Asda and Boots, was appointed to the Specialist Businesses subsidiary board. Joining her is Mike Cutt, who has held the post of Group Human Resources Director at Boots, B&Q and, latterly, Thomas Cook.

“Our new Non-Execs have got straight down to business, and are already bringing invaluable independent advice to the Group as we continue to build on our successes as a major force in UK retailing”, added Moira.

And what is the verdict from the new Non-Exec team? The Co-operative Group has certainly met the expectations of Euan Sutherland, who was attracted by the unique nature of the role: “I’d been approached for a number of Non-Exec opportunities, which I’d discounted, but I was receptive to this opportunity due to the different nature of The Co-operative Group’s operating model and the breadth and depth of its social responsibility and campaigning.”