Spouse and children-owned office store Fenwick picks ex-Lovefilm boss as chair | Enterprise News

Fenwick, the loved ones-owned section shop chain, has picked a previous manager of the DVD rental support Lovefilm to assistance steer it by means of the sweeping modifications impacting Britain’s retail sector.

Sky News understands that Simon Calver, who also had a stint jogging Mothercare, was declared internally this week as the successor to interim chairman Steve Barber.

Mr Calver’s appointment arrives times immediately after Fenwick reopened its merchants to buyers just after spending substantially of the very last 12 months closed due to the fact of the pandemic.

The company, which has a residence portfolio worthy of hundreds of hundreds of thousands of lbs, is operate by John Edgar, a former Harrods and Selfridges govt who was appointed to the main executive’s job past yr.

Fenwick, which opened its initial retail store in Northumberland in 1882, has been trying to improve its online business enterprise for the duration of the last 12 months of lockdown-afflicted income.

Mr Calver’s electronic knowledge is said to have been a major element in the family members shareholders’ determination to recruit him.

In new months it has prolonged the quantity of outfits and furnishings makes it sells in an work to compete a lot more correctly with rival merchants.

In a assertion, a Fenwick spokeswoman claimed that Mr Calver brought “a wealth of encounter primary retail, corporate and technological innovation organizations, and will be supporting Fenwick as we provide our clients and neighborhood communities by way of the pandemic recovery period and further than”.

It ongoing: “The board and the family members would like to convey their gratitude to Steve Barber, who as interim chair supplied important assistance throughout the substantial troubles of the past yr.

“He will go away in June with our very best needs for the foreseeable future.”