CTO and technology veteran Mike Sackman departs grocery retailer Coles Group and returns to UK

Coles Group’s Chief Technology Officer Mike Sackman is bidding farewell to the Australian grocery retailer after just one year in the role.

Coles’ Chief Operating Officer Matt Swindells has become acting CTO.

Sackman joined at in March of last year, having held CIO roles at UK retailers including John Lewis Partnership, Waitrose and Argos. He has also worked at B&Q and Kingfisher. It is understood that he is returning to his native UK. 

A Coles spokesperson told RTIH: ‌“Mike has bought decades of retail technology experience to Coles. Since joining us, he has helped shape our technology agenda in support of our 3D strategy, with a strong focus on practical outcomes for customers and our teams. This included supporting the roll-out of tools like ChatGPT Enterprise and Copilot to help make everyday tasks easier and improve the quality of work.”

They added: “‌He has improved our cyber security capability and awareness, strengthening how we protect customer and team member data, keep our stores and online running smoothly, and build trust in our business.”

John Cox

Sackman replaced John Cox as CTO.

In a LinkedIn post last year, Cox said: "After my longest time in a role ever, I am finishing up as CTO at Coles. I've loved my time in stores, facilities, with growers, manufacturers, and the wider Coles team."

"We have an amazing board and executive who have supported bold bets in technology and transformation that are paying off. The results show in how quickly we have been able to apply technology, and the strong execution across the business that has resulted in our share price and PE multiple now up there with the best in the industry."

He added: "No transformation is possible without an amazing team. I'd like to especially thank the Coles Technology team, the Tech LT and our partners: collectively we have modernised an enormous amount of the technology stack, from supply chain to a fully cloud native data platform, to networks, to HR and store tech, to retail media, to setting us up for an AI future with a platform that enables hot-swappable models and automated governance, a massive investment in GPU's in stores giving us world leading machine vision and event streaming capabilities, and importantly getting the basics right such as improving the predictability of projects (easy to say, but bloody hard to do), while delivering a radical reduction in system downtime (go ITIL and automation!)”

2026 RTIH Innovation Awards

Grocery retail will be a key focus area at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards.

The awards are now open for entries and celebrate global retail technology innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.

Our winners will be revealed at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards Ceremony, taking place at The HAC in Central London on Wednesday, 4th November.

Check out our 2025 winners here.

Our 2025 hall of fame entrants were revealed during a sold out event which took place at The HAC on 16th October and consisted of a drinks reception, three course meal, and awards ceremony presided over by award winning comedian, actress and writer Tiff Stevenson.

In his welcome speech, Scott Thompson, Founder and Editor, RTIH, said: “This is the awards’ fifth year as a physical event. We started off with just 30 people at the South Place Hotel not far from here, then moved to London Bridge Hotel, then The Barbican, and last year RIBA’s HQ in the West End.”

“But I’m conscious of the fact that, to quote the legend that is Taylor Swift, You’re only as hot as your last hit, baby. So, this year we’ve moved to our biggest venue yet, and also pulled in our largest number of entries to date and broken attendance records.”

He added: “This year’s submissions have without doubt been our best yet. To quote one of the judges: The examples of innovative developments across both traditional and digital retail spaces were truly remarkable.”

Congratulations to our winners, and a big thank you to our sponsors, judging panel, the legend that is Tiff Stevenson, and all those who attended our 2025 gathering.