Holland & Barrett announces new hires across tech and strategy

Holland & Barrett International (HBI) has appointed George Goley as Chief Technology Officer and Doug Nesbit as Group Strategy & Transformation Director.

Goley becomes the retailer’s first CTO. Most recently he served as Chief Technology Officer of Sainsbury’s Argos and its predecessor Home Retail Group. Prior to that he built a career in the US, including as Chief Information Officer of Sears Online, as Vice President of Technology for Amazon from 2006 to 2015, and from 1999 to 2006 in multiple technology leadership roles with Microsoft.

Nesbit (also in a newly created role) will coordinate completion of Holland & Barrett’s emerging new strategic plan, and lead business-wide transformation programmes that will underpin the next phase of UK and international growth. He previously held interim commercial and programme leadership roles with Dixons Carphone and Dunelm, and before that served in several key roles at Argos, including Customer Experience Director and Transformation Director with Argos, and Group Strategy Director for Home Retail Group.

Peter Aldis, Chief Executive at HBI, says: “We know there remains substantial headroom for further growth both here and overseas and the appointment of Doug and George in these newly created strategic roles puts us in the perfect position to capitalise on these opportunities and deliver our ambition to become a world leader in our sector.”

HBI currently operates more than 1,100 stores across the world, including 788 branches in the UK and Ireland and 32 ‘store in store’ concepts within Tesco supermarkets. It was acquired by L1 Retail in September 2017.