IMRG Retail Advisory Board

Andy has over 20 years’ experience across core areas of retail - having worked in the disciplines of store management, supply chain, buying, strategy, international and latterly eCommerce.

This experience has been gained at leading retailers within their fields such as Wyevale the garden centre chain, Screwfix a multi-channel trade leader and B&Q the leading home improvement retailer.

Aynsley has worked in the online & digital sector for over 20 years and has worked on Hybris, Salesforce Commerce Cloud and Magento E-commerce platforms. He has completed three re-platform projects and is greatly experienced integrating the latest technology, payment gateways and ERP systems. He has worked at Cox & Cox for five years and was promoted to E-commerce Director in September 2020.

Since January 2014, Catherine Hall has been the eCommerce Director for TJX Europe, the leading off-price retailer of fashion and homeware worldwide. Some of the European brands Catherine overlooks are TK Maxx and Home Sense.

Before joining the team at the TJX Europe, Catherine previously held executive eCommerce roles at other global retailer brands such as Jaeger and Agent Provocateur.

Chris joined Pets at Home in 2021. Prior to this Chris was Digital Director at New Look where he was responsible for digital development and eCommerce trading across UK and International markets.

Chris has extensive experience across Digital and eCommerce as well as senior Buying, Marketing and Category Management roles within major UK retailers. Chris spent 5 years as Head of Digital Operations at Argos and was previously Head of Multi-channel at Halfords.

Chris has played an active role in business transformation programs and has enjoyed the challenge of delivering Digital integration within multi-channel retail businesses.

David is a multichannel veteran with a wealth of online and offline retail experience. He is currently driving the digital growth and brand marketing for Heal’s, the world-famous furniture and interiors store.

He has previously held leadership positions in major high street names including WHSmith, Waterstones, Borders and Snow+Rock Group. As a self-appointed champion of the SME, David is a keen proponent of practical solutions that deliver indisputable performance.

Direct responsibility for all aspects of the digital customer experience and driving sales digitally through all channels - eCommerce, Retail and Wholesale. Responsible for the EMEA E-Commerce business unit P&L.

Providing strategy and direction for developing and implementing omni-channel initiatives, striving to create seamless cross-channel experiences for consumers within EMEA utilising CRM tools and digital products.

Helen has more than 15 years of eCommerce experience and is Founder and CEO of Dotty Fish. Under Helen’s dynamic leadership Dotty Fish has grown into a market leading eCommerce baby shoe company. She has developed a vast wealth of experience with cross border trade and Marketplace selling and was a finalist for the NatWest Everywomen Awards in 2020 recognising female entrepreneurs.

The company continues to successfully expand into new markets, with a strong focus on customer retention and sustainability. As Helen always says, “you can never have too many shoes!”

Consumer executive focused on transformation, growth and innovation. 23 years in consumer marketing and digital and a more recently board advisory.

Kevin is a experienced multi-channel/digital leader with 20+ years of experience working within the retail sector. He has coached and managed trading, content, marketing and technical teams and promoted a collaborative approach. Having worked for leading multichannel and pure-play businesses, across a range of product areas (fashion, food, homeware & beauty), he has led numerous technical development projects (inc. site launch, replatform) and managed a variety of third party suppliers.

Lee is leading the digital transformation at Assa Abloy group within EMEA. AB is a Swedish conglomerate who are the Global leader in access solutions. Made up of over 190 different brands with household favorites like Yale, August and Union. Their product offerings cover locks, doors, gates, entrance automation and includes controlling identities with keys, cards, tags, mobile and bio-metric identity systems.

A veteran of retail & ecommerce with over 20+ years of leading some of the UK's brands online. Where he has driven significant technology change and revenue growth.

Before ASSA ABLOY, Lee has held Ecommerce Director roles at Evans Cycles, Wickes and spent many years at Schuh leading their online charge.

Mark co-founded Beer Hawk in 2012 which he scaled from two mates in a shed, to a profitable business with over high eight figure revenues and a team of over 180 beery enthusiasts on a mission to inspire customers to find their next favourite beer. He oversaw a successful exit to a strategic buyer, AB InBev, in 2016, and continues to be part of the global leadership team for ZX Ventures.

Mark Wright Joined Fatface in June 2019 as Global Operations Director and was promoted to Chief Operating Officer in May 2022. Mark is responsible for all selling channels which includes >185 UK Stores, a growing North America store portfolio, and all Fatface Ecommerce. In addition to this he has board responsibility for people as well as supply chain, logistics and end to end customer experience. Mark worked as Multichannel Director for Jack Wills as well as a wide range of roles at Marks and Spencer; including Head of UK Trading M&S.com, store operations, and field positions as both store and regional manager.

Martin is the Vice President of eCommerce at Michael Kors, leading all digital commerce, content, operations and marketing activities across 50 global markets.

He is a strategic and customer centric digital practitioner who has twenty years demonstrable success identifying, developing, and delivering digital initiatives that produce customer value and financial return. Over 15 years of executive leadership experience executing and translating global brand strategies into individual unique country markets he is skilled at both establishing new and accelerating existing digital businesses.

Martin holds an MSc in Internet Retailing and is an accredited Forrester CX practitioner.

A passionate media and technical marketing specialist, Matt has 15 years’ experience delivering customer growth across retail and fashion.

As Director of Performance Marketing at MADE.COM, Matt leads the brand’s global growth strategy through customer acquisition, retention and experience optimisation.

Before joining MADE, Matt held marketing leadership roles at Sky, Net-A-Porter and Sainsburys Argos, where he was instrumental in the digital and media transformation of general merchandise and fashion marketing functions.

Matt is an advocate for ISBA as Chair of the Future Operating Model group, and an active mentor for emerging talent in media through Bloom and MentorForGrowth.

Mike Durbridge is the CEO of Andrew Martin International, an interior design specialist offering a wide range of fabrics, wallpapers, furniture and home accessories for tastemakers in search of individual interiors with a twist. Prior to leading Andrew Martin International, Mike held senior positions at Kingfisher and B&Q. Mike also spent four years leading the Retail, Online and Contact Centre channels at Vodafone UK, creating the first multichannel operation for Vodafone globally.

Mike has had a variety of marketing, sales, commercial and operational leadership roles in telecom, financial services and mail order businesses over the course of his 20 year career and is a strong believer that the key to commercial success for modern retailing is to ensure that customers, enabled by choice, simplicity and consistency, are placed at the heart of any business.

With 20 years’ digital retail experience across a number of blue chip retailers working both client-side and supplier-side, Nadine specialises in helping brands and retailers maximise online and offline trading opportunities through cross-channel integration, effective consumer marketing and “customer keeping”. In 2015 Nadine took up the position of e-commerce and CRM director at Moët Hennessy, bringing the worlds’ finest wines and spirits direct to consumer, before joining Hobbs as its customer director at the end of 2016. In 2018 she became e-commerce director for Sunday Times Fast Track accredited Revolution Beauty before taking up the helm as interim digital director at fashion giant Ted Baker in 2019. As interim chief customer officer of 20-year old luxury makeup brand ByTerry she most recently led the brand into a major digital transformation through the challenging times of a global pandemic. Nadine is now independently advising a range of retail brands and start-ups.

Leading multichannel, Ecommerce and marketing professional at senior leadership level across numerous verticals. Previously CEO for WoolOvers, Omnichannel Director for Moss Bros, Marketing and Ecommerce Director for M & M Direct, Ecommerce Director for Otto Group and Shop Direct.

Named in the top 50 Ecommerce professionals, 2016 movers and shakers and winner of numerous Ecommerce and marketing awards including Drapers overall gold award.

Paul re-joined The Very Group in January 2021 as Digital Customer Experience Director, and prior to that led the online business at Matalan for 3 years as their Director of eCommerce.
Within his current role he is responsible for driving the digital customer experience across all of The Very Group’s brands and touchpoints, leading a collection of squads who focus on making data informed decisions to improve the journey and drive forward the technology landscape.

Chief Commercial Officer at Vivobarefoot, Paul is digitally native with 15 years of Ecommerce and Digital experience, and is Chief Commercial Officer at Vivobarefoot.

Pauls current remit and focus is across international trade and channel optimisation, internal and customer facing technology innovation, and exploration of IR4.0 to enhance customer journey and experience.

Prior to his time at Vivo, Paul worked in the central E-commece function for Dixons Retail and Commercial Trading team for Carphone Warehouse.

Richard’s role at Sally Beauty is to take a largely wholesale store business and grow the direct to customer channels His remit includes creating propositions and improving experiences within eCommerce, customer services and direct sales teams. The wide variety of customers from mobile hairdressers, to beauty salon owners, to large independent spas all have one thing in common in that they need a trusted, reliable partner to support them run their business.

Richard joined Sally Beauty in 2014 from Post Office, as Head of Digital overseeing the rebranding online and implementing new digital customer journeys. Previous to that as Head of Direct Channels at Wickes, Richard launched Wickes.co.uk.

Sally Heath Minto is Global Digital Director at Revolution Beauty, a leading global mass beauty company, and manages all DTC websites and Digital sales through global Ecommerce partners such as Asos, Beauty Bay, Zalando and Amazon. A lifelong retailer, Sally started her career on the shopfloor in the early 90’s. She then held several Fashion Buying roles in retailers such as House of Fraser, Allsaints, USC and New Look before deciding to specialise in Ecommerce 10 years ago latterly becoming the Ecommerce Director at New Look in 2015. Sally is passionate about customer experience and loves the changing nature of Digital Commerce. Sally is also a Brand Ambassador for the Retail Trust.

A merchandiser by trade, Sara has over 25 years’ retail experience having worked for companies such as Arcadia, Whistles, House of Fraser, BHS & Austin Reed. She transitioned to the world of eCommerce at The White Company where she was Head of Online Trading for two years.

Subsequently, Sara spent six years consulting for a number of retailers including Tesco, Shop Direct, Jack Wills and Debenhams, specialising in multichannel planning and trading before joining Space NK in 2016 as Head of eCommerce.

Now as Trading Director at Space NK, Sara’s role has grown to encompass both direct and store trading, eCommerce development and customer services. Her primary focus is to ensure the customer experiences a seamless journey no matter which channel she shops.

Sean went straight from university into a career in retail and spent most of the 25 years since progressing through a number of roles at footwear retailer schuh. He is a seasoned ecommerce and CX leader - experienced in driving both the strategy and day to day performance of volume online commerce, innovating customer digital experience and enabling highly specialised teams to achieve their potential. Since departing schuh in Autumn 2020, he has been involved in advisory work, taken time out to study and has spent a period guest lecturing at the University of Edinburgh. In the Summer of 2021 he is joining B2B scale up Candle Shack as their first Ecommerce Director, where he will be “doing his bit” for their exciting plans for growth.

Siobhan joined Sainsbury’s Argos in 2014 having previously worked as Head of Online Trading at Lakeland and held roles at a number of other major UK retailers. Siobhan has extensive experience across all areas of Digital from Digital Marketing through to Digital Product Development, with a particular focus on Digital Trading and eCommerce.

As Director of Ecommerce Trading for General Merchandise at Sainsbury’s, Siobhan’s remit includes all elements of eCommerce for Argos.co.uk, Habitat.co.uk, Argos.ie and General Merchandise on Sainsburys.co.uk. This includes Digital Trading, Digital Content, Design & Implementation, Product Information and Site Operations. Siobhan also leads two group-wide functions at Sainsbury’s; SEO and User Generated Content.

Stephen re-joined M&S in June 2020, 9 years after departing to take charge of Asda’s clothing business online, George.com. Having started his career in the early 2000s at Tesco Direct, he has extensive digital retailing experience across a number of multi-channel players. Prior to returning to M&S, Stephen was the Commercial Vice President at George.

Sue has over 20 years’ experience in retail gained across multiple disciplines. She started her career as a qualified accountant, then moved into Digital in 2010 and has held senior roles at Peacocks, AXA, Screwfix & Kingfisher. In 2020 she moved from leading the Screwfix Digital team to Kingfisher, to support the new group-wide Ecommerce strategic direction and is building Ecommerce Centres of Excellence to accelerate growth across all the global brands.

Tim Ryan has managed Digital for Seasalt since 2020, and, prior to that, has over 12 years in a number of roles across multiple verticals both in house and agency side. His current responsibilities includes building and driving the digital agenda for Seasalt with responsibility for digital trade, digital marketing, user experience, development and innovation, eCommerce Operations and digital analytics, all with a view to helping to drive the development new online business development opportunities and delivering a best in class omni channel customer experience.

Victoria Betts is Chief Commercial Officer of Hotter Shoes (Hotter.com), the UK’s biggest footwear manufacturer, and is responsible for all commercial across all markets. During the past 12 months, Victoria has demonstrated leadership and technical ability to help reposition Hotter as a predominantly online retailer, leading the company to post a 27% leap in online sales. During 2020, Hotter attracted over 7m web visitors, with 90% of new customers acquired through digital channels (with a digital:physical sales ratio of 67:33). 75% of web visitors accessed the retailer through mobile devices or via the retailer’s app.