Mothercare appoints chief financial officer

Mother and baby products retailer Mothercare has named former UK Tesco finance director Richard Smothers as its new chief financial officer and executive director.

Smothers, currently director of group finance at Rexam, will join the retailer on March 23, replacing Matt Smith who will be leaving the company to join Debenhams as chief financial officer on January 20.

Prior to his role at Rexam, Smothers spent 14 years at Tesco in a number of senior finance roles, including finance director (Asia), CFO Tesco Lotus (in Thailand) and finance director for UK operations, having previously held various positions at Cargill.

Mark Newton-Jones, chief executive of Mothercare, said: “Richard has a wealth of experience having worked for multi-billion pound global businesses and his financial and commercial expertise will be extremely valuable as we implement our strategy to transform and modernise our business.”

Smothers, added: "I am excited to be joining Mothercare plc at this pivotal time in its turnaround, and look forward to working closely with Mark, the Executive Committee and the Board of the Company."