Halfords has appointed the Jill McDonald, the UK boss of fast-food chain McDonald’s, as the new chief executive of the cars part and bicycles retailer.
She will take over the position from Matt Davies, who has been poached by Tesco to head the supermarket’s UK operations.
Ms McDonald currently holds the position of UK chief executive and president for the fast-food giant’s North West Europe division, where she oversees about 3,300 outlets with more than 200,000 staff across seven countries.
She is due to start the new position with the high street retailer, which has more than 450 stores and 11,000 employees, on May 11, when Mr Davies leaves.
Mr Davies, who has spent two and a half years with Halfords, instigated a turnaround programme at the retailer called Getting into Gear that overhauled stores to give them a greater focus on bicycles. The scheme helped lift the company’s share price by 45pc.