About Stuart
A career built by understanding how organisations really work — and by helping people make them work better.
The short version
I was born in the Midlands and grew up in Tamworth. I joined Tesco at 16, expecting a job and finding a career. Nearly 30 years later, I had worked from stores and Head Office to global sourcing and international operations, including assignments in Kraków and Prague.
I have always been interested in why some businesses run smoothly while others make simple things hard. When I left Tesco in 2014, setting up my own businesses felt natural. Since then, I have trained, advised, coached and worked alongside organisations of many sizes.
The thread through it all is practical change: understand the real problem, involve the right people, create a workable route forward and stay close enough to delivery to make it count.
Career journey
A progression from hands-on retail operations to international programmes affecting hundreds of stores and thousands of colleagues.
Started in Tesco stores at 16. Became a regional training expert for Stock Control, System Operations, and Wines & Spirits; supported store openings and refits across the Midlands; and gained duty manager experience at Ashby-de-la-Zouch.
Moved to Welwyn Garden City for Stores Helpdesk and Supply Chain roles. Managed projects for the Tesco Personal Finance support office, new-store systems, initial ordering and process improvements.
Used sales analysis to plan system adjustments for Christmas, Easter and weather events, balancing the needs of Commercial, Distribution and Retail teams.
Established Tesco's first dedicated waste-analysis team, identifying risks early and working with Fresh Food commercial teams and suppliers to deliver significant savings.
Helped create and deploy Tesco's international operating model, developing practical best-practice processes for stores, depots and support teams across multiple countries.
Led development work for a £4.6bn purchasing function, managed an offshore transition to Tesco India, supported Salesforce selection and wholesale deployment, and rolled out SharePoint across 14 countries and four continents.
Country Deployment Manager in Kraków for Building a Better Tesco Polska, working across 450 stores and a 30,000-person business.
Deployment Project Manager in Prague and primary stock-ordering contact across Poland and Czechia, covering stakeholder engagement, skills, testing and pilot rollout across 375 stores.
Built specialist businesses covering GSCOP, EU UTP, retail consulting, facilitation, transformation and wider business support; alongside board, trustee and grants-panel work.
Governance
Commercial judgement applied in charitable, place-management and public-funding settings.
Strategic direction, financial oversight, compliance and scrutiny for a Grade II* heritage charity. The Trust moved into profit for the first time during the tenure.
Represented town-centre business owners, led the large-retailers group and contributed to the successful 2019 renewal for a further five-year term.
Independently assessed and voted on match-funded EU ERDF applications, typically three to eight a week and ranging from £10,000 to £1.5m.
Capabilities
English (native), French (professional working), Czech (elementary), with starter Polish and Bulgarian.
