Fortnum & Mason names Matchesfashion's Athron to top post

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Nov 3, 2020

Fortnum and Mason has found a new CEO with Matchesfashion’s Tom Athron set to join in the post on December 1. The appointment comes after Ewan Venters announced in September that he would leave the company in January.

As his departure date suggests, there will be a month-long handover process between the outgoing and incoming chief executives at the luxury retailer that’s controlled by the Weston family whose other retail interests include Selfridges and Primark.

The historic luxury retailer is best known for its foods, although it also sells a variety of upscale beauty products, accessories and gifts.

Athron has an impressive background in the fashion sector and has been chief operating officer at Matchesfashion since May 2018. Part of his role there has included widening the company’s global appeal, as well as leading the teams that run e-commerce, logistics customer experience and the studio.

Before that he held a variety of posts at John Lewis Partnership over a 12 year period, including group development director, trading director at the John Lewis chain and CFO at Waitrose.

All of these previous roles combine to give him a background that covers both physical retail and digital, as well as luxury, the middle market, specialist boutiques and department stores.

Fortnum & Mason chair Kate Hobhouse said he’s “a great fit with the multichannel business that Fortnum’s has become”.

Athron added that his new company is “a traditional British business with a truly global outlook, a strong purpose and increasingly desired around the world”.