M&S appoints all-women managers to run new M&S stores

M&S has appointed an all-women team of six managers to lead the openings of five brand-new M&S stores this year. Between them, the all-female team has more than 115 years of retail experience and will lead a combined team of over 1,000 colleagues. The appointments follow the launch of M&S – Worklife - a new flexible working offering designed to support existing colleagues to achieve a better work/life balance and help M&S to attract the best talent in the industry. The group has also recently launched the M&S Job Share Finder app for its employees to find roles available for job share. Naomi Hartley and Emily King will be opening a new M&S in Birmingham Bullring later this year. Store manager Justine Brook and her team opened the new 97,000 sq ft, 100% electric-powered M&S Leeds White Rose store on 25 May and Kirsty Williams and her M&S Liverpool ONE team are preparing to open their new store on 15 August. Additionally, the group’s old stores are being moved into new retail spaces by Laura Smith in Manchester's Trafford Centre and Dior Hudson in Essex's Lakeside Centre. Hartley and King currently work as store managers together at M&S Solihull, which has been their first job share role. Having been with M&S for 18 years, both the duo have worked across many M&S locations and have both opened new stores solo. Brook is the store manager for the recently opened new M&S store in Leeds’ White Rose shopping centre. The new store is a “homecoming” of sorts for Brook, who began her 30+ year career at M&S in Leeds on a training scheme in 1986. In her time at M&S, she has worked in 27 different stores and most recently was a regional manager in the Midlands. Meanwhile, Williams has been at M&S for over 10 years in total and Smith first started working at M&S aged 16 helping customers to pack their bags in her local Foodhall. She’s recently celebrated 25 years of service at M&S working at a variety of stores. Lastly, Hudson started her career at M&S on the annual Retail graduate scheme and will mark 10 years with M&S later this year, having worked in a number of busy London stores over the past decade. Hartley said: “When we first started talking about the idea, Naomi and I realised that we’d actually started working at M&S on exactly the same day in September 2005 on the same retail graduate scheme. Since then we’ve followed our own career paths, but now we’re working together as a team – so this job share was obviously meant to be.” King added: “I’ve got two young children at home, so the idea of a job share was definitely motivated by wanting to be there for my family. But I am also doing a HR Consultant apprenticeship alongside my store manager role, so the job share has also given me the time and space to pursue my professional development too.” Brook concluded: “Leading the new Leeds White Rose store opening has been an amazing moment for me. M&S started in Leeds where the business was founded in 1884 on a stall in Kirkgate market. And Leeds is also where I got my start at M&S on a youth training scheme in 1986 so it feels like a full circle moment. I’ve had so many amazing experiences since then, but I have to say that opening day in Leeds was the proudest day of my career so far.”