Up-market retailer David Jones loses boss and suffers hacking attack in same week

DAYS after losing its boss in mysterious circumstances, retail giant David Jones was forced to admit customer details had been stolen by hackers.

Computer hacker - Male thief stealing data from laptop

DAYS after losing its boss in highly mysterious circumstances, up-market retail giant David Jones was forced to admit customer details had been stolen by hackers.

The horror week for the 177-year old retailer came despite a recent massive corporate turnaround, with outgoing chief executive Iain Nairn in June having steered a 28.8 per cent jump in operating profit to report the company’s strongest results in eight years.

That result, reversing a four year earnings decline with a 6.4 per cent growth in sales to $1.9 billion, was not enough to save Nairn from being cast aside by the iconic Aussie retailer’s new owners, South Africa’s Woolworths Holdings.

Nairn’s departure after just 14 months in the job came a day after Woolworths chief Ian Moir flew to Sydney for meetings with the Australian boss and amid revelations of an audit into executive expenses at the retailer.

On Tuesday morning, Mr Nairn told colleagues he would be sick for the rest of the week, but by the next afternoon he had resigned for “personal reasons”. A spokesman for Woolworths said Mr Nairn’s departure was not related to the expenses audit.

New top dog ... John Dixon will replace Iain Nairn as David Jones’ chief executive

He will be replaced in January by John Dixon, a former executive at British retailer Marks & Spencer. The fact Dixon resigned from his job in July led many observers to conclude the succession was in motion for months, and Dixon’s strong background in food retailing (he helmed a $12 billion operation in the UK) adds weight to speculation DJs will expand its gourmet offerings.

“There is no doubt this was planned for a long time, and the fact they went ahead with it despite how well Nairn and his team had been performing just goes to show how cutthroat that corporate culture is inside Woolworths,” said one market observer.

Woolworths Holdings — which last month appointed former Westpac chief Gail Kelly to its board — paid $2.2 billion for David Jones last year.

Already reeling from yet another management shake-up — CEO Mark McInnes was forced out in 2010 after sexual harassment allegations and his replacement Paul Zahra’s rollercoaster captaincy saw him resign from the job twice — David Jones was yesterday forced to admit its customer loyalty database had been hacked in an attack similar to that suffered by discount retailer K Mart earlier in the week.

Fresh beginning ... David Jones ambassador Jessica Gomes at the announcement of a new store at Barangaroo. Picture: Jonathan Ng

“David Jones has today advised its customers that a third party recently exploited vulnerability in its website to extract limited information about some of our customers,’’ it said in a statement.

“The information obtained was restricted to customer name, email address, order details and mailing address. No credit card information, financial information or passwords were obtained. David Jones does not store any financial information on its website. There is no indication that the accessed information has been misused in any way.”

The company said that as soon as the September 25 attack came to light, it moved swiftly to stop any further attacks, with the help of technology provider IBM.

“David Jones has confirmed to its online customers that it is not necessary for them to take any action regarding their credit or other payment cards as their financial information data is not at risk. There is also no need for David Jones customers to change their website account details or passwords.’’