Shop Direct appoints customer intelligence director

Shop Direct, the owner of Very.co.uk and Littlewoods.com, has announced its third data-focused senior appointment in under a month, bringing in McKinsey and Company junior partner Assi Gol to lead its customer intelligence teams.

Gol will join Shop Direct, the UK’s second largest pureplay online retailer, in September and will be responsible for “strengthening and accelerating the development” of Shop Direct’s data-fuelled approach to e-commerce.

He takes up the position previously held by Dene Jones, who left Shop Direct earlier this year, and will oversee the data science and data strategy teams, whose aims are to uncover insights that will improve and further personalise the user experience across the company’s retail brands.

Gol will report to Shop Direct’s incoming group strategy and customer director, Sasha Berson, who will join the executive board from his role as Groupon’s EMEA chief marketing officer and vice president in September. In late June, the e-tailer also announced the appointment of Gael Decoudu as head of data science. Decoudu will report to Gol from September.

Alex Baldock, chief executive officer at Shop Direct, said: “Our rich customer data is the core of our business. It’s not just helping us create one of the world’s most personalised shopping experiences; it helps our people make better commercial decisions.

“Assi will help us take our data science and analytics to the next level, and give customers the unique experiences we know they love.”

Image: courtesy of Shop Direct