New Coles boss Leah Weckert rejigs her executive leadership team

Newly appointed Coles boss Leah Weckert is wasting no time reshaping her leadership team.

Coles chief executive Leah Weckert and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Brisbane. Picture: Getty Images

Newly appointed Coles boss Leah Weckert is reshaping her executive leadership team as she makes mer mark on the nation’s second largest supermarket chain.

Ms Weckert, who this month took over from Steven Cain as chief executive, on Wednesday announced new appointments as well as the departure of an executive who led the retailer’s $1bn cost-savings initiative.

The appointments involve rejigged portfolios for some existing senior executives and the surprise exit of chief executive of emerging businesses George Saoud.

In a letter sent to Coles staff, Ms Weckert said she had made important changes to her executive leadership team.

She has appointed Amanda McVay as its new chief customer officer. Ms McVay will lead the development and execution of the marketing, brand and customer communication strategies.

She has extensive marketing and customer strategy experience, and joins Coles from US grocery chain Meijer, where she was most recently group vice-president, head of marketing, digital, customer strategy and own brand.

Before joining Meijer in 2012, Ms McVay had an extensive career at Target in a range of commercial and merchandising portfolios. She has a Master of Business Administration from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, and in 2022 completed the Leadership for Senior Executive Program at Harvard Business School.

She is a former elite junior tennis player, and held a tennis scholarship at the Indiana University during her undergraduate degree. She joins Coles on June 13.

Coles has also promoted Michael Courtney to the role of chief executive, liquor. Mr Courtney had led the Coles Express business for more than four years, and oversaw the successful transition to Viva Energy.

He replaces the outgoing boss of the Coles Liquor arm, Darren Blackhurst, who will step down in June and return to Britain with his family.

Ms Weckert has also made some portfolio changes to other existing Coles executives.

Matt Swindells, chief operations and sustainability officer, will assume responsibility for retail manufacturing and the delivery of its billion-dollar automated warehouse project with Ocado.

This will bring together all Coles’ core operations across stores, online, and supply chain for supermarkets, Ms Weckert said in her staff announcement.

Larry Kavanagh, general manager of retail manufacturing and Helen Brunt, general manager of the Ocado program will report to Mr Swindells.

Coles Ambassador Curtis Stone, former boss Steven Cain and newly appointed chief Leah Weckert. Picture: Getty Images

Chief financial officer Charlie Elias will assume responsibility for procurement and group transformation. General manager of procurement Ian Finlay will report to him and group transformation will report through to Clay Welch, general manager of corporate strategy, transformation and development.

Ms Weckert said in a move to continue to unify and innovate the digital customer experience, chief digital officer Ben Hassing will assume responsibility for financial services, bringing together the supermarket’s customer digital and payments businesses. General manager of financial services Paul Askew will join his leadership team.

Executive general manager fresh Andy Mossop and executive general manager packaged grocery Jonathan Torr join the executive leadership team on an interim basis while the retailer searches for the chief executive, commercial.

Trish Unwin will be joining Mr Torr’s team in the newly created position of general manager wholesale.

In a surprising move, Mr Saoud will be leaving the business and has “decided to pursue opportunities outside of Coles”, Ms Weckert said in her letter.

Since joining Coles in May 2020, Mr Saoud has led the delivery of the “Smarter Selling” program – a key pillar of Mr Cain’s strategy to drive a better performance and higher profits from the business that resulted in $1bn cost savings.

“Mr Saoud also played an integral role in the sale of Coles Express to Viva Energy, and established the value proposition for our award-winning Coles Insurance business,” Ms Weckert said.

“During his time, he also designed our B2B portal delivering strong growth, unlocked additional value for customers by onboarding Bunnings and Officeworks as partners of Flybuys, improved access to data and insights across Coles with the One Data program and introduced Flypay, a seamless way for customers to pay for purchases and collect Flybuys points when shopping at selected retailers.

“On behalf of the board and executive leadership team, I would like to thank George for his significant contribution to Coles and wish him all the best with his future endeavours.

“To ensure a smooth handover, George will support the transition of his portfolios until Friday, 30 June.”