Hundreds of executive jobs axed in Coles restructure shake-up

Hundreds of Coles staff will be forced to leave in a massive management shake-up, with almost 500 executive jobs wiped out, under a huge restructure at the head office in Tooronga.

The Coles shake up will see hundreds of jobs lost.

Recently appointed Coles chief executive Steven Cain is restructuring his supermarket’s Melbourne head office operations in a move that will see 450 executive roles disappear and hundreds of staff shown the door.

Coles Express boss and one-time chief-of-staff to Kevin Rudd, Alister Jordan, will also walk away from the company as part of the changes.

A spokesman for Coles would not disclose the actual number of staff to be made redundant under the new structure.

But he said that many of the 450 roles to be eliminated were vacant and had not been filled for some time.

Nevertheless, it is expected that hundreds of staff will be let go under the restructure the head office, located in Tooronga.

The job losses come just a week after Woolworths launched its own shake-up of its store operations.

Woolworths promised that the changes would not lead to any job losses, but has caused some concern among staff as they are redeployed to new roles.

Coles staff were told about the redundancies and restructure on Thursday morning.

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Mr Jordan, who is chief executive officer of Coles Express, online and corporate affairs, will leave the company at the end of the year.

It is believed he was offered other senior roles within Coles but decided to leave.

Another senior executive to walk is Coles’ chief store operations officer Paul Bradshaw.

Coles Express convenience will be run by Greg Davis, who is currently Coles’ chief operating officer.

He has also been named as Coles’ new chief executive of commercial.

Coles chief supply chain officer Matthew Swindells is the new chief operations officer.

The round of redundancies at Coles HQ and the new executive appointments comes as Mr Cain prepares to hold his maiden investor day and strategy update for Coles on June 18.