Formed in August 2019, Ocado Retail is a 50-50 joint venture between M&S and Ocado Group. It is responsible for ocado.com, online pet store Fetch and Ocado Zoom, a one-hour grocery service. Ocado Retail serves 350,000 households a week, and has a 15% share of the UK online grocery market.
Mel has had an impressive career in the food and retail industry to date. She began her career at McKinsey, where she spent 12 years and became a Partner, gaining extensive experience advising leading grocery retailers on their operations. She left McKinsey in 2009 to join TalkTalk as the Executive Director of Operations and Integrations, and subsequently moved to Bupa to serve as the Global Marketing and Strategy Director. In 2017, Mel joined Marks & Spencer as Strategy Director, before being appointed as the CEO of Ocado Retail in August 2019. She is also on the Board of Directors of SSE plc and is a Trustee of Sadler’s Wells.
It is also wonderful to announce that Mel has been awarded a CBE, for Services to Retail and the Food Supply Chain during the Covid 19 response, in the New Year Honours list.
Mel’s first year at the helm was as demanding as they get.
Alongside navigating the challenges we all faced during the pandemic, Mel ensured that as many customers as possible (particularly those most in need) were able to use Ocado’s services safely during the height of lockdown and beyond. This was all while touring the country to make sure the frontline colleagues were safe and well and working closely with the excellent teams at Ocado Group who were working tirelessly to keep our operations up and running. Many congratulations to Mel and the team.