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// JD Sports appoints Régis Schultz as new chief executive
// Schultz will join in September, replacing interim CEO Kath Smith
JD Sports has appointed former B&Q executive Régis Schultz to take over from Peter Cowgill as chief executive.
Schultz will join in September, bringing with him a wealth of retail experience.
He has replaced interim CEO Kath Smith, a former Adidas executive, who has been running the company since Cowgill’s departure in May.
Cowgill dramatically exited in May amid corporate governance concerns.
READ MORE: Who is JD Sports CEO frontrunner Régis Schultz?
Smith will resume her former role as Senior Independent Director on the Board.
Most recently, Schultz was the president of retail at Al-Futtaim Group, a large conglomerate based in Dubai.
He also spent eight years at Kingfisher, joining in 2000 as Castorama’s chief financial officer and chief operating officer.
In 2003, he moved to the UK to becoming Kingfisher’s strategy and development director before being promoted to chief operating officer for B&Q.
Schultz’s wealth of overseas retail experience will certainly be useful at JD, where international is a growing priority.
The sportswear giant has over 900 stores worldwide across 32 countries, including almost 100 stores in the US, plus stores across Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East.
“The Board has taken this opportunity to conduct a truly global search to find the right candidate to lead JD on the next stage in its development,” JD Non-Executive Chair, Andrew Higginson said.
“Régis brings exactly the characteristics we were looking for. He is a retailer through and through with experience across all types of retail formats.
“He has also delivered transformational change through digitisation in a number of his roles. Finally, he has significant international experience which will be very important as he works with myself and our senior team to execute on our growth strategy. We very much look forward to Régis joining us.”
Schultz added: “JD has consistently proven itself to be one of the most successful operators of multi-brand retail formats in the world.
“We are committed to going deeper in the international development of our brands applying our experience and executional expertise and further enhancing our market leading multi-channel customer experience.”
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