Education and qualifications
MA (First) Modern European History and International Affairs. Bertolt Brecht University, Augsburg, Germany
Experience
An experienced international business professional with over 15 years’ experience in advisory, research and analytics focussed on the retail and consumer goods sectors. Paul was previously the Group Managing Director at Planet Retail. He has also worked in the retail sector for T-Mobile Stores in Germany in Merchandising & Store Operations.
Paul co-chairs the KPMG/Ipsos UK Retail Think Tank as well as the European Retail Think Tank Next Generation Retail. He teaches retail best practice for GS1 the global retail standards organisation and is a regular event speaker and press commentator on the sector.
During his career Paul has:
- Created the 2020 Commercial Retail & Digital Strategy and Implementation plan for one the world’s top 10 hub Airports. Focussing on the future retail, f&b and passenger services business models and delivering the first pilots within a 6-9 month timeframe.
- Led a feasibility study for a UK Symbol Group retailer analyzing the potential roll-out of a franchise model. In this context developed a front-end roll-out and organizational change plan to be implemented over the period of 24 months to open 50 franchised stores.
- Established the international expansion strategy for a UK mid-market specialist retailer through identifying the entry markets and relevant business models. Produced a clear implementation plan and relevant operating model changes required to deliver £10m Ebitda from the international business within 4 years.
- Assisted the leading UK non-food multichannel retailer in their commercial transformation by designing and implementing the new operating model focused on dynamic pricing, demand driven supply and a customer centric focus
- Led a strategy project for a global fashion retailer analysing their 1,000 store international operation delivering key recommendations on entry and exit markets and developing guidelines for all future store openings defining, location, size and category mix. Goal of the project was to assist the program in doubling Ebitda over the period of 3 years
- Worked with the Board and the Merchandising teams of a leading North American based retailer to transform their food to go and private label offering
- Transforming Planet Retail from a European focussed grocery research program to a global pan-retail analysing program which resulted in doubling the staff headcount and doubling the turnover over the period of 5 years
- Headed a research project for a Russian multi-channel retailer analyzing different options of introducing a loyalty card scheme and comparing global best practice and the impact of loyalty schemes
