Stuart Machin: CEO of M&S, From pushing trolleys to becoming CEO

My Duvet Flip by Jack Parsons

Jack Parsons

Business, Careers

4.2 • 5 Ratings

🗓️ 3 October 2024

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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Episode Guest

Meet Stuart Machin, Chief Executive at Marks & Spencer.

Stuart is the Chief Executive of M&S. He took over as Chief Executive Officer in May 2022, having joined M&S as Food Managing Director in April 2018 with 30 years’ experience across food, fashion and home retail sector.

Prior to his appointment as CEO, Stuart was joint Chief Operating Officer, where in addition to leading M&S Food, he also took responsibility for property and store development, store operations, HR and IT.

Stuart is also a director of Ocado Retail Limited – the joint venture between M&S and Ocado Group. Throughout his career, Stuart has held senior operations and commercial roles across the UK and internationally, starting his career in Sainsbury’s and British Home stores, Tesco and then Asda. Stuart spent 10 years in Australia as part of Wesfarmers as COO and CEO of Coles supermarkets and Target department stores respectively. Returning to the UK he was briefly CEO of home retailer and manufacturer Steinhoff UK.

Stuart has extensive experience of retail transformation and a deep understanding of operations, trading, marketing and online. He also attended the three-month residential HARVARD AMP programme in 2013 and the Harvard CEO programme in 2023.

Episode Timestamps

00:00 Introduction and Stuart's Background in Retail

02:02 Stuart's Journey to Becoming CEO of Marks & Spencer

03:00 The Diverse World of Retail

07:13 The Importance of Being a Team Player

12:26 Gaining Diverse Experience in Retail

15:02 Challenges and the Need for Teamwork in Managing a Large Organization

18:06 The Process of Creating and Marketing Products in Retail

23:50 The Role of Passion and Dedication in Retail Success

25:47 Exploring Job Opportunities in the Exciting Retail Industry

26:20 Conclusion

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Retail is full on. It's really exciting, but you're as good as your customer tells you this morning.
0:06.5	When you got everything coming at you, how do you compose yourself?
0:10.0	I wasn't always Carl when I was 21 and I had a visit from our operations director.
0:15.5	Very tall man, pinstripe suit.
0:17.5	The only thing about Stuart, he's a headless chicken, he's always panicking and
0:21.4	rushing around. I went round the corner and said, I'm Stuart, I'm the chief executive of Marks
0:29.5	and Spencer. We buy nearly 70,000 people and this is my juve flip. Say I want to get into retail,
0:37.4	I have no experience.
0:38.8	What's three things you would recommend I do?
0:41.8	I think the first thing is retail is so diverse.
0:44.8	I mean, there's so many different parts of retail.
0:46.8	One of the colleagues who works for me, his name is Sandeep.
0:49.3	He said to me, you've got the perfect job for you.
0:53.3	Having that interesting people could be a strength. So if you
0:58.4	like meeting people, working with people, then return is a great opportunity for you.
1:04.7	If you was looking at your younger self now, what would you be telling them? Well I think
1:08.0	that. What goes into... Don, don't test me on ingredients.
1:11.6	No, not in the ingredients.
1:13.6	No artificial colours on faces.
1:15.6	I know, I can see that.
1:16.6	What's your duvet flip?
1:18.6	What gets you out of bed in the morning to flip the duvet? Who's Who's Who's
	...

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