Ocado has named Mark Richardson as chief executive of a new business venture aimed at extending Ocado’s product offering into new market sectors alongside grocery.
An Ocado Group board member with 20 years of experience across the business, Richardson is currently chief operating officer of the group and has previously been responsible for the group’s tech, platform implementation and logistics business sectors.
Group CEO Tim Steiner said that the grocery technology business expanded outside of its core grocery focus in 2020 with the acquisitions of Kindred Systems and Haddington Dynamics, a move that will be accelerated with the upcoming launch of its Re:Imagined Ocado Smart Platform products.
He added that the new OSP will allow Ocado Group to offer a product range that will set “an unrivalled level of performance both in price and throughput”.
Crucially for the business, this will not only be used in the grocery sector, but can also be adapted for automated storage and retrieval systems which can be used across “a wide range” of market sectors.
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“Ocado Group will soon start a new business segment that combines these activities and over the next few years will revolutionise the whole ASRS and robotic handling sectors,” Steiner said.
“I am delighted to confirm that Mark Richardson will lead this new venture. Mark is a 20-year Ocado veteran and during this time has been responsible for teams spanning technology, platform implementation, and logistics. He also has extensive experience of working directly with the materials handling equipment sector.”
Ocado also highlighted that the new venture would be self-financing and will not require any additional capital beyond what had previously been outlined.
The news comes shortly after it was announced that Ocado Retail’s Melanie Smith CBE will be stepping down from her role as chief executive of the grocery giant after three years.
Smith will be handing over to Lawrence Hene when she leaves the business on 31 August 2022.
