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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/mar/23/halfords-hires-mcdonalds-uk-boss-jill-mcdonald
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Halfords hires McDonald's UK boss | Halfords hires McDonald's UK boss |
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The boss of McDonald’s in the UK, Jill McDonald, has been hired as the next chief executive of Halfords where she will become one of the few women at the helm of a London-listed company. | The boss of McDonald’s in the UK, Jill McDonald, has been hired as the next chief executive of Halfords where she will become one of the few women at the helm of a London-listed company. |
McDonald, who is 50, will join the bike and car accessories chain on 11 May after five years heading the restaurant chain’s UK operations. In January 2014 she took on responsibility for Germany, McDonald’s biggest European market, and six other countries, overseeing 3,300 branches. | |
Before joining the fast-food giant as UK chief marketing officer in 2006, McDonald spent 16 years in marketing for British Airways and also worked at Colgate Palmolive. | |
She will replace Matt Davies, who is leaving Halfords to run Tesco’s UK business, and be paid a salary worth £500,000, up to three times that amount as a bonus and a further £1.5m maximum a year from a long-term share plan. | |
Halfords will also award her £165,000 a year in company shares for the next three years to compensate her for forfeiting McDonald’s shares when she leaves. There will be no financial performance targets attached to the payouts because there were none at McDonald’s, according to Halford’s chairman Dennis Millard. | |
Shareholders are increasingly wary of ”golden hellos” that replace shares which new recruits leave behind at their previous company. Stretching payments over a number of years is seen as the minimum requirement because investors usually want a financial performance target as well. | |
Millard said McDonald was hired because she would continue the work of Davies who won credit for overhauling Halfords’ customer service and building staff morale while improving financial performance. | |
“We were looking for somebody who had experience and background in understanding what the consumer needs and somebody from a service industry really gets that. We also wanted someone with a track record in colleague engagement as well,” Millard said. | |
“She has been briefed very heavily on our existing strategy and she buys into that. We are about halfway through the journey from where Matt Davies joined to lead us to be a very high service business,” he added. | |
She helped lead the revamp of McDonald’s image in the UK by toning down the appearance of stores and introducing healthier food options. McDonald’s was not involved in the 2013 horsemeat scandal and the government’s report into the affair praised the company’s handling of burger supplies. | |
Kate Calvert, an industry analyst at Investec, said: “Her strong brand marketing and customer service background looks a good match for Halfords where the modernisation and turnaround strategy is well progressed. We expect her to bring her own take and emphasis.” | |
But veteran retail analyst Nick Bubb said the appointment of McDonald was “a real ‘left-field’ choice” for the company and that it was a step down from her role at the fast food chain. | |
McDonald, who has a first-class business studies degree from Brighton University, has spoken out against snobbery in business by urging companies to take on more school leavers instead of fixating on graduates. | |
Her appointment will take the number of women chief executives at FTSE 250 companies to 10, according to the Professional Boards forum. Bosses at listed companies below the elite FTSE 100 include Dido Harding at Talk Talk, Katherine Garrett-Cox at Alliance Trust and Kate Swann at SSP. | |
While her predecessor Matt Davies is a biking enthusiast known for cycling around the Lake District on a high-spec Boardman bike, McDonald owns a Halfords entry-level Apollo bike – although her husband is a cycling fan. | |
“She lives in the country so there are lots of hills for her to cycle up and down,” Millard said. | “She lives in the country so there are lots of hills for her to cycle up and down,” Millard said. |