Marks and Spencer finance chief to depart retailer and join Primark owner ABF

A single of the most senior figures at Marks and Spencer, finance director Eoin Tonge, is to go away the retailer later on this year to consider up a new role at Associated British Foodstuff.

Tonge’s departure from M&S comes only months soon after the company declared that he was to get on improved tasks pursuing the retirement in Might of Steve Rowe, the previous main government, and Rowe’s alternative by a joint crew of Stuart Machin and Katie Bickerstaffe. Tonge had been named main tactic officer in addition to his finance tasks.

M&S said Tonge would continue on to support the enterprise by means of its interim benefits announcement in November and that it was starting the system of appointing a substitute. ABF explained he would sign up for the enterprise no afterwards than February.

M&S’s chair Archie Norman explained Tonge had produced a “great contribution” to the “transformation” of M&S.

“Our financial controls, reporting, and financial discipline are in a considerably much better place than when he arrived,” Norman claimed.

Tonge experienced been found as a essential determine in the retailer’s leadership through the changeover from Rowe to the uncommon co-chief govt arrangement.

At ABF, Tonge will exchange John Bason, who will come to be chair of a new strategic advisory board and senior adviser to ABF’s Primark retail business. Together with the announcement, ABF claimed trading remained unchanged because it past current the marketplace on June 20.

Tonge, who joined M&S in 2020, mentioned it was under no circumstances an straightforward selection to depart “a excellent small business like M&S”.

But he claimed: “The opportunity has knocked for me to get on a new money position across a assorted portfolio of businesses.”