Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England, May 2024 – Nicola McIntosh has joined AF Blakemore & Son Ltd as the new Chief People Officer. With extensive experience in human resources leadership, Nicola aims to enhance the organization’s HR strategies and drive transformative change.
Before joining AF Blakemore & Son Ltd, Nicola served as the Executive Director of People and Organisational Development at Rotherham Doncaster & South Humber Foundation Trust from August 2020 to May 2024. In this role, she led the HR strategy and development, focusing on improving employee engagement and organizational performance.
Prior to this, she was the HR Operations Director at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust from October 2016 to July 2020. Nicola was responsible for overseeing HR operations and implementing policies that supported the trust’s strategic goals.
Nicola also held the role of Deputy HR Director at Jet2.com and Jet2holidays from August 2015 to September 2016. Here, she led the people strategy for various departments, including Flightdeck, Cabincrew, Operations, and Engineering, enhancing performance and engagement across the organization.
Earlier in her career, Nicola was the HRD at Morrisons plc from December 2013 to August 2015. She shaped and led the strategic direction of the People Agenda for the Manufacturing division, significantly improving customer service, talent management, and employee engagement.
About AF Blakemore & Son Ltd: With more than 100 years of heritage and a trading area that spans across England and Wales, AF Blakemore & Son Ltd is one of the UK’s most successful family-owned companies. The company began life in 1917 as a counter service grocery store and has grown from these humble beginnings into a company that now employs more than 7,500 people and has a turnover of circa £1.1 billion.
Food and drink have always been the lifeblood of AF Blakemore, and the business now entails retail, wholesale distribution, food service, logistics, specialist foods, and shop fitting divisions. As one of the largest divisions of SPAR UK, AF Blakemore owns 280 SPAR stores and serves more than 1,000 in total across England and Wales. The company is also a member of the Unitas Wholesale group and a significant supplier to the independent grocery sector across the UK.
AF Blakemore has always been committed to developing a loyal and dedicated workforce that is focused on excellent customer service and behaving with integrity. The company strives to build partnerships with suppliers and trade partners while never underestimating the role it plays within the communities it serves. Underpinning everything that AF Blakemore does is the company’s values statement, the Blakemore Way, which highlights what the company stands for and the way it has always done and will continue to do business.
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