Tesco Labs’ Nick Lansley resigns after 27-year career with retailer
Nick Lansley, head of open innovation at Tesco Labs, has resigned from the retailer following a career spanning nearly 30 years as chief executive Dave Lewis forges ahead with restructuring the leadership teams.
“Tesco have amicably accepted my request for voluntary redundancy,” Lansley revealed in a blog post today (13 March). “I will be leaving the Welwyn Garden City campus for the final time as a colleague on 13th April.”
Lansley joined Tesco in 1987 as a programmer before being recruited as a web developer in 1995 as the supermarket embarked on its first steps to launching an e-commerce proposition. He describes himself as one of the founding fathers of Tesco.com.
After seven years developing the site he moved on to become head of research and design, a role he held for over 11 years working on projects such as accessibility to the Tesco grocery website for vision-impaired customers and creating APIs for clients and third party developers.
Last January he joined Tesco Labs, the retailer’s innovation hub, which suffered a major blow earlier this year when one if its first projects – an app for Google Glass – was released a day before the search giant announced the device would not be going on sale.
“When I reflect on the last quarter century I’ve had enormous fun, from helping found and build Tesco’s online service, a founding member of Tesco’s staff network for LGBT colleagues, and helping create Tesco Labs innovation group with some incredibly talented people, to name but a few milestones,” he said.
“I leave Tesco with a heavy heart but happy to be moving on to try something new.”
He is not thought to have another role to go to.
“I’ll be taking a summer break with the hubby in our new seaside home and getting stuck into a few personal projects that have been neglected in recent. After the summer, I want to get out there as an ‘innovation insider’ and help companies who want to start their own innovation teams, or who are struggling to get traction with innovation projects,” he said.
Tesco declined to comment on whether Lansley would be replaced. A spokesperson reiterated that it was “going through a restructuring process” and was not able to confirm if the role would be scrapped completely.
Dave Lewis was flown in as chief executive last year to help the ailing supermarket recover from declining sales and a £260m accounting error.
He has earned the title 'Drastic Dave' after overhauling the management team last December, with the chief creative officer role, held by Matt Atkinson, axed and chief marketing officer Jill Easterbrook replaced by Robin Terell.
Jason Tarry was appointed as the head of commercial for the UK while David Hobbs, group business planning and strategy director, left the company.
More recently Michael Holmes, head of the retailer’s in-store restaurants and coffee shops, made his way to the exit door.