The one-time Adelaide schoolgirl’s rise to the head of Australia’s supermarket giant

In Australian corporate life being chief financial officer is like being federal Treasurer – it doesn’t guarantee you the PM gig. New Coles CEO Leah Weckert has turned that on its head.

When Leah Weckert was named as the next chief executive of supermarket retailer Coles she got a message from a surprising source – her soon-to-be-arch rival, Woolworths boss Brad Banducci.

The Woolworths chief executive has weathered the challenges thrown at the $100bn supermarket sector by the Covid-19 pandemic, including supply chain snags, skills shortages and panic buying.

“Firstly I’d say well done to Steve Cain on a very successful five years; we tried to make his life a bit difficult of course, as you might imagine, and we are delighted to see an internal appointment at Coles – and to have another female chief executive in Australia is fabulous,” Mr Banducci tells The Weekend Australian.

“I haven’t had the benefit of meeting her personally, but I did send a message last night saying here is my number in case we ever need to speak, and I’m sure we will bump into each other.

“I haven’t heard anything but positive thoughts on her for the last 10 or 12 years and her rotation through Coles where she was running a state, being the head of people, CFO and head of commercial; so it feels like a great rotation through the group.”

Growing up in Adelaide and attending Marryatville High School, Ms Weckert’s first work experiences was helping out at her parents’ grain and fodder store.

Later, as a pharmacy assistant, she put herself through university where she earned degrees in chemical engineering and science from the University of Adelaide.

She started at Coles in 2011 following a stint at McKinsey, where her main focus was retail and consumer goods and progressed to the supermarket’s merchandise, strategy and innovation operations.

It was there she got a taste of everything from private label to product pricing and responsible sourcing. Her next two years was spent as a state manager of Victoria, where she was responsible for running 204 supermarkets for the then parent company of Coles, Perth conglomerate Wesfarmers.

Leah Weckert in a previous guise as Coles state manager in Victoria. Picture: Kylie Else

Ms Weckert ticked an important box in her lengthy Coles CV when she spent time in people and culture to lead the HR section.

A future CEO needs to show the board, investors and the analysts they have a good grip of the numbers and at Coles those numbers are huge: a $24bn supermarket with 130,000 workers and twin technology – and automations projects budgeted at about $1.5bn which she must now land.

In 2018 she was appointed chief financial officer as Wesfarmers was going through the process of the demerger of Coles into an independent listed company. It was something of a corporate baptism of fire.

“Leah has been an outstanding performer across a diverse range of executive roles in Coles, is passionate about team and customers and is well prepared to lead Coles in the future,” says Wesfarmers chief executive Rob Scott when asked this week about her new appointment.

Leah Weckert as a teenager studying at Marryatville High in South Australia. Picture: Michael Marschall

For Ms Weckert, serving as Coles CFO for four years put her in front of one of the most important stakeholders, the analyst community which will soon be judging her every move, strategy, result and pronouncement.

“She was always really thorough, really detailed on all the numbers which is obviously a key part of the CFO job,” says Tom Kierath, the head of consumer research at investment bank Barrenjoey, a leading analyst on the supermarket sector and someone who spent a lot of time talking to Ms Weckert about Coles’ financial workings when she was CFO.

“So I had a pretty high amount of confidence in her ability to know what was going on, and she was quite forthright as well, so she never would leave you not knowing what her answer was or what her view was — which is also pretty good.

“I think she‘s done her time, she’s obviously done the financial thing (role), which is good and she’s done the operating thing (commercial and merchandise) more recently. So it’s a good balance of experience there.”

Mr Banducci has more in common with Ms Weckert than just running the nation’s No.1 and No.2 supermarket chains.

Like the incoming Coles boss who cut her teeth in her early career as a consultant at McKinsey, he is a former consultant at rival firm Boston Consulting. When

Leah Weckert with the man she replaces as chief executive, Steven Cain.

Ms Weckert starts her role as Coles chief on May 1, it will mean both supermarket giants will have former consultants at the helm.

“Working in these (consultancy) firms does accelerate you looking at strategies and you are privileged to be able to do things in a few short years, like investment banking, and that in a normal culture you wouldn’t get quite the same intensity of learning,” Mr Banducci says.

“And I assume the same was true for Leah as it was for me, in that I was lucky enough to work for Boston Consulting Group around the world in retail … Leah would have had the same, they do help you get a sense of what ‘good’ looks like and be able to travel the world.

“But I think there is a transition into being an executive. I’m sure she will have her own version of that.

“Learning to make decisions a bit more quickly than you do as a consultant, being highly engaged.”

As a young woman Leah Weckert took part in the Youth Parliament in SA.

Mr Banducci’s observations of Ms Weckert’s career also highlight another key aspect: the way she has worked her way up Coles’ management ranks and got a taste of all aspects of the business.

Mr Kierath and other analysts see her as a “safe pair of hands” as Coles nears completion of its two tech projects with providers Witron and Ocado which is costing billions of dollars and promises to accelerate the e-commerce and distribution strength of the supermarket chain.

“And for me, Coles are going through this huge investment phase and there are a few question marks about whether those investments in Witron and Ocado are going to work,” the Barrenjoey analyst says.

“So the fact that she was there signing the deals and in some kind of way was responsible for them (as CFO), it is good that she’s going to continue to see them through as opposed to someone appointed externally or someone that wasn’t there and could say, ‘oh, actually, that wasn’t a great idea we’re going to write it off or we’re going to change it’.

“I kind of like that continuity of her being there and then becoming the CEO.”