The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7248 p639
10 May 2003

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Boots (www.boots-plc.com)

Boots gets its new chief executive from Asda

The Boots Co Plc has appointed Richard Baker as its new chief executive. He is currently chief operating officer at Asda.

Mr Baker will take up his post on 15 September. Steve Russell, the current chief executive, will leave the company at the end of May. In the interim, company chairman John McGrath will be acting chief executive. He retires in September and will be succeeded by Sir Nigel Rudd.

Mr Baker was quoted in the national press as wanting to concentrate Boots on its core businesses. "Boots has been focusing around the peripheries instead of concentrating on its core as a dispensing chemist and a retailer of health and beauty products. There's a lot of value in the core business," he told The Independent on 2 May. Boots recently announced a complete withdrawal from the wellbeing services and overseas expansion favoured by outgoing chief executive Steve Russell (PJ, 5 April, p465).

Mr Baker worked for Mars before joining Asda in 1995. He subsequently worked his way up through the organisation and was appointed chief operating officer last year. At Boots, he is to receive a salary of £625,000 plus share options, a bonus of 50 per cent in his first year and compensation of around £650,000 for leaving Asda's share scheme.