Aldi has promoted its communications director Richard Thornton to the new position of group customer interaction director.

Thornton, who has been at Aldi since 2014, first joined the discounter as a corporate communications manager before moving to communications director in 2018. Previously, Thornton held roles at Bupa, Westfield Shopping Centres in positions including PR and marketing.

His appointment comes as a replacement to Nick Ridley, who stepped down as group customer interaction director after a 27-year stint at the grocery retailer.

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Thornton will be succeeded by Rebecca Heley, who is currently global customer strategy director after being appointed in August last year.

Heley joined the supermarket chain in 2012 as area manager before being promoted to global business coordination roles in 2017, both as manager and then strategy director.

The senior team shake-up follows Aldi last month revealing that it was consulting over proposals to restructure some head office teams in a move that could see up to 350 jobs cut.

A spokesperson for Aldi told Grocery Gazette: “To support our continued growth and to offer the best experience to our customers, we are consulting over proposals to restructure some Head Office teams.

“We are committed to supporting our colleagues throughout this process. Wherever possible, we will seek to redeploy affected colleagues within the business.”