// Tesco online boss departs for role at Google
// Chris Poad has been managing director of online at Tesco since October 2019
Tesco’s online boss Chris Poad has revealed that he will depart from the grocer after the “most intense period” of his career.
Poad, managing director of online at Tesco since October 2019, has led the supermarket’s online teams as they tackled soaring lockdown-induced demand for home deliveries and click-and-collect.
The grocer increased the number of online orders fulfilled each week from 590,000 in the first week of the crisis, to a peak of more than 1.4 million. Tesco is still fulfilling around 1.2 million online orders each week.
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Poad joined the supermarket from Amazon, where he had spent more than a decade, most recently as director of Amazon Business international.
He has started in his new role as managing director, retail solutions EMEA at Google’s cloud computing business Google Cloud.
“Leading Tesco’s online business has been one of the most rewarding and, at times, intense periods of my career,” Poad said.
“We doubled the size of the business, launched new services, and supported millions of customers at a time when they really needed us.”
Poad added that he was “hugely proud of the team and the strategy I leave behind” and that he’d had “a fantastic few years at Tesco”.
Tom Denyard has been named as Poad’s replacement. Denyard joins the role from the CEO position at Tesco Mobile, which he has held since late 2019. He has previously worked for Unilever and M&S.
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