Retail systems veteran Phil Barron joins Banner

Phil Barron has taken on the role of Chief Information Officer at Banner, a supplier of clothing and sportswear to schools in the UK.

Barron’s CV includes stints at LK Bennett, Primark, Argos and McDonald’s. His LinkedIn profile says that he “turned around the entire IT infrastructure and applications for LK Bennett which had suffered from ten years of under-investment, achieving full IASME Cyber Security certification and a reduction in Opex of £1.2 million in less than 12 months.”

At Primark, he managed all retail systems on an interim basis, updated the retailer’s payment gateway to support international expansion and defined a three-year strategy for new in-store technology aimed at improving customer journeys and staff support. Barron also led the setting up of all IT solutions across the business for Primark’s expansion into Italy.

He headed up a Digital Store delivery programme as a fundamental part of Argos’ £300 million transformation programme And he built and led the Programme Office for the EPoS, back office and infrastructure refresh for 7,400 McDonald’s restaurants across 40 European markets.

“Programme budget alone (excluding hardware and deployment) was £45 million, the results of which you see now with kiosks, table service, 24 hour service, drive thru and home delivery,” his LinkedIn profile states.