M&S appoints ex-Coles exec Thinus Keeves as retail director

M&S has announced it has appointed former Coles executive Thinus Keeves to the newly created role of retail director. 

Keeves, who will start on 6 June, will report to operations director Sacha Berendji. Berendji will continue to have overall accountability for Retail, Property, Security and Business Continuity. 

Keeves joins the retailer from Australia where he has spent the majority of his career, having worked in a number of senior leadership roles at Coles. In his new role, Thinus will have accountability for all M&S stores across the UK and ROI, as well as Central Store Operations.

Announcing the appointment on Linkedin, M&S CEO Stuart Machin, said: “Like all new senior leaders, Thinus will spend his first month working in stores getting close to colleagues and close to customers. Following this, to ensure stores remain at the very heart of our decision-making across M&S, in July he will also join our ExCo team.”

The news comes after M&S confirmed it is set to open 12 brand new food stores on former Homebase sites across England, in a move that will create over 550 new jobs.

The openings form part of M&S’s store rotation and renewal programme, which aims to create 420 “bigger, fresher” food stores and transform 180 full line stores, with half of the estate expected to be in the renewal format by 2027/28.

Last year M&S opened six food stores and two full line stores, whilst renewing nine existing stores. 

This year, the group plans to open 10 food stores and two full line stores, and a “number” of other stores will see a renewed format. 

The new stores, some with over 20k Sq ft of trading space, will include sites in Abingdon, Cannock, Northampton, Farnham and Godalming, with the Godalming site expected to be the largest standalone food store to date.