Harding has announced today two significant appointments that will support the acceleration of their “quaternity” approach to running its business– a combined partnership of cruise lines, brands, retailer and customers.
Mike Coupe will join as Non-Executive Chairman, and Matthew Hodges will join the Executive Leadership team as Chief Commercial Officer.
Coupe led Sainsbury’s (a £30bn turnover UK based retailer, employing 165k people) for 6 years as CEO including architecting its’ takeover of Home Retail Group. In a career spanning 35 years, Coupe has also worked at a number of the UK’s leading retail businesses. He joins with immediate effect and will help reinforce Harding’s expertise as a specialist retailer supporting their partners.
Matthew Hodges will lead the Global Retail Operations, and Buying & Merchandising teams reporting to Harding Managing Director, James Prescott.
Hodges, was most recently President of Godiva, and previously held senior commercial roles at Remy Cointreau as Sales & Marketing Director, and Diageo as Director of Strategy. Hodges will join the business on August 2nd.
With over 20 years of Travel Retail experience having led the strategic programs for some of the world’s greatest brands, Hodges is well versed in driving commercial growth, identifying channel strategies and structures, and is no stranger to cruise having worked with Harding on a number of dynamic programs.
Harding is the UK/Europe’s largest cruise retail organization with central hubs in Bristol, Miami and Sydney. It currently has contracts with over 22 cruise line partners across the globe, encompassing more than 62 cruise ships and 250 shops.