LONDON: Kingfisher Plc has announced the appointment of Thierry Garnier as Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Thierry will be appointed to the Board as an Executive Director and will take over from Véronique Laury as Chief Executive Officer.
He will be based at Kingfisher’s headquarters in London and will join Kingfisher in the autumn. The effective date of his appointment will be announced as soon as it is finalised.
Thierry is an experienced retailer having spent 20 years in senior roles at Carrefour, the French multi-national retailer. He is currently a member of the Carrefour Group Executive Committee and the Chief Executive Officer of Carrefour Asia, where he is responsible for over 350 stores in China and Taiwan, with 55,000 employees, and gross sales of over €6bn. In this role, he has established a successful track record of implementing business transformation in the face of significant competitive pressure and sector disruption.
As the leader of Carrefour’s Asian business since 2012 he has developed and executed a strategy oriented around innovative new digital capabilities, centralised buying, new format implementation, e-commerce and strengthening stakeholder relationships.
From 2003 to 2008, Thierry was the Managing Director of Supermarkets for Carrefour France, where he successfully rebranded the Champion supermarket format to the Carrefour Market fascia.
This format was rolled out to 1,000 supermarkets in France, with sales of approximately €13 billionn. During this period he oversaw a significant improvement in performance by doubling non-food sales, investing in own-brand ranges, improving the pricing structure and restructuring the supply chain.
Following this successful period, he became Carrefour’s International Operations Director in 2008, with a broader remit including Asia, Latin America and various European countries.