Sainsbury’s director to be Greggs chief

Apr 10 2008 by Graeme King, The Journal

BAKER Greggs has announced that Sainsbury’s retail director Ken McMeikan will be the company’s new chief executive, to succeed the retiring Sir Mike Darrington.

Mr McMeikan is joining the Newcastle company at the age of just 42, but already has a respected track record with both Sainsbury and Tesco.

The new man will join the board of Greggs on June 1 this year, giving him two months to work alongside Sir Mike until the long standing group managing director retires at the end of July.

The appointment of Mr McMeikan has echoes of Sir Mike joining Greggs 25 years ago, with both men being outsiders to the Greggs team and both joining the business at a similar age.

Despite the change in title, Mr McMeikan will perform the same role as the outgoing Sir Mike.

The incoming chief executive is credited with playing an important role in the recovery of Sainsbury after the supermarket chain, whose slogan is “Try something new today”, suffered difficult trading before boss Justin King and his team engineered an improvement in performance.

Greggs chairman Derek Netherton said: “When we began the process to find a successor to Mike Darrington, we recognised that he would be an extremely hard act to follow. We are therefore delighted to have found in Ken McMeikan a person with the right mix of abilities and personal qualities to lead the business in the next stage of its development.

“His considerable retailing experience, gained with both Sainsbury’s and Tesco, will greatly complement the skills and expertise that already exist within the Greggs senior team.”

Sir Mike Darrington said: “I am really pleased to be handing on my executive responsibilities at Greggs to someone who fully understands and shares the unique values of the business, and possesses the right people skills to implement the next phase of our strategy.

“Ken’s experience will strengthen our already excellent top team. My belief is he shares our values and our culture, and believes what we have got here is really good – the people side of our business, and how we do things.

“The feedback we have had from analysts is that he is very well regarded and we’ve done really well to secure someone of this calibre.”

Before Mr McMeikan’s appointment, it was understood Greggs was considering promoting from within to fill the chief executive role, but Sir Mike said the company decided it needed new blood.