Asda has appointed former Morrisons chief executive David Potts as its group CEO with immediate effect, placing an experienced supermarket operator in charge of its continuing turnaround after more than two years of pressure on market share.
Potts takes over day-to-day leadership from Allan Leighton, who becomes non-executive group chairman. Leighton has led the retailer since November 2024 and will retain responsibility for chairing the board and overseeing the company’s longer-term strategic direction.
The appointment follows an extended period of difficult trading for Britain’s third-largest supermarket group. Asda has faced intense competition from Tesco, Sainsbury’s and the discount chains while working to improve product availability, customer service and its price positioning.
Its Formula for Growth strategy has concentrated on making stores more competitive and rebuilding customer confidence. Management has also pursued a broader commercial proposition, including the development of services intended to position Asda as more than a conventional supermarket business.
The retailer recently returned to underlying sales growth during its third quarter, its first such improvement in more than two years. That progress provides Potts with an initial recovery to build upon, although the company has not yet demonstrated a sustained return to stronger market share.
Potts brings extensive experience of managing large grocery operations. He began working for Tesco at 16 and subsequently held senior executive roles overseeing its businesses in Ireland, Britain and Asia. He was also a member of the Tesco board between 1998 and 2012.
He joined Morrisons as chief executive in 2015 and remained in the role until 2023. During that period, the supermarket developed its wholesale activities, expanded convenience retailing and was taken into private ownership.
That background gives Asda a chief executive familiar with both the operational pressures facing traditional supermarkets and the commercial decisions involved in developing additional channels for growth.
Leighton said that Asda had stabilised during the preceding two years, returned to some growth and made progress with its wider strategy. He identified Potts’s experience as important to the next stage of the company’s development, while moving into a non-executive role as previously planned.
The new CEO inherits the immediate challenge of protecting Asda’s price position while improving the consistency of its store operations. Product availability, staffing, promotional execution and customer service are all central to the experience of shoppers choosing between competing grocery retailers.
Those decisions must also be made against the company’s financial constraints. Asda is majority-owned by private equity investor TDR Capital and has faced scrutiny over its debt and the investment required to improve its trading performance.
The scale of the business gives operational changes a wide reach. Potts referred to Asda’s 116,296 employees when discussing the appointment, placing its workforce at the centre of the recovery effort. Changes to management structures, store practices and commercial priorities will be carried out across a substantial national organisation.
Potts said he would focus on delivering better value and making improvements to shopping trips that customers could recognise. The timing of his appointment places particular emphasis on the Christmas trading period, when pricing, product availability and store execution become especially important to supermarket performance.
The immediate leadership transition is now complete, with Leighton returning to board oversight and Potts assuming executive responsibility. The new management arrangement will be tested first through Asda’s seasonal trading performance and the continuation of its existing operational recovery programme.
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