Russia’s largest retailer by sales Pyaterochka has snapped up two former executives from the world’s number one and number two retailers – Wal-Mart and Carrefour – as part of the company’s ongoing “management upgrade”.

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The chain announced today (11 September) the appointment of Herve Defforey as a non-executive member of the supervisory board. Having held positions at Nestlé, Dufforey served as finance director and general manager at Carrefour between 1993 and 2004.


Meanwhile, Carlos Maria Criado has been selected to serve as a strategy development consultant to Pyaterochka’s CEO Lev Khasis. He is currently executive president of Spain’s Dinosol Supermercados, having previously held the top job at the UK group Safeway and served as COO of Wal-Mart International.


“We expect that the extensive experience of Herve and Carlos will allow us to develop the most effective model for the further development of the enlarged group, using the natural advantages of the Pyaterochka and Perekrestok merger to the maximum extent,” Khasis commented.


“The primary focus of our further activities is the consolidation of the segmented Russian retail market, and we hope that attracting such highly qualified professionals of international level, who have experience in the development of largest Western retail chains – market consolidators in Western countries – will allow us to successfully accomplish our aggressive expansion plans in the Russian market,” he concluded.

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In order to centralise merger and acquisition activities, Pyaterochka has created the position of director of mergers, acquisitions and business development, a post that will be filled by Andrey Gusev. Gusev’s most recent position was with the Alfa Group, having previously worked at Bain & Company and Deloitte & Touche.


The company has also introduced the new position of communications director with an eye to centralising external communications. This role has been taken by Gennady Frolov.


Ivan Larin has been appointed to the newly created role of director of treasury. His mandate is to centralise control over cash flow a financial risk.


Khasis said: “The company currently faces the following primary objectives – implementation of the synergy created by the merger of two largest Russian retain chains, and further aggressive market expansion of the enlarged group. In order to deliver on these objectives we are consolidating a number of management functions in the corporate centre to increase the efficiency of the enlarged group. This management model requires the creation of an experienced, highly professional top management team. Today we continue this process that can be called ‘management upgrade’.”