£1m-a-year M&S chief to be a first time mum at 50
She’s so important stock exchange is informed of motherhood
THE most senior female executive at Marks & Spencer is going on maternity leave at the age of 50.
Laura Wade- Gery will take four months off before returning to her £1million-a-year role. She starts her leave in two weeks’ time.
The head of retail is seen as the ‘ heir apparent’ to current chief executive Marc Bolland following her rapid rise through the ranks.
M&S made the surprise announcement to shareholders on the London Stock Exchange yesterday, but they did not comment on whether Mrs Wade- Gery was pregnant herself, adopting or using a surrogate.
Described by friends as ‘formidable’ and ‘frighteningly intelligent’, the Oxford graduate is in charge of M&S’s entire network of 800 stores as well as its website.
She earned a £1.04million pay package last year, making her one of the firm’s highest paid executives.
Mrs Wade-Gery, who was formerly the chief executive of Tesco’s website, splits
‘Formidable and frighteningly clever’
her time between a £1.4million three-bedroom flat in London and a picturesque farm in Suffolk, which she shares with her husband Simon Roberts, who farms sheep and cows. She is said to enjoy early morning kick-boxing classes and yoga.
Born in Westminster, she is the daughter of senior British diplomat Sir Robert Wade- Gery, who died in February, and lived a nomadic childhood, spending time in India, Vietnam, Spain and Russia.
She went on to study history at Magdalen College, Oxford, where she played for the university ice hockey team. While an undergraduate, she travelled from Palestine to China with her friend travel writer and broadcaster William Dalrymple.
He wrote about their adventures in a book, In Xanadu, in which he recounted a time she single-handedly chased off an entire street gang in Delhi who were intent on violence following Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984.
One rioter was apparently left ‘permanently incapacitated’. Mr Dalrymple wrote: ‘Her reputation had gone before her. She was renowned as a formidable lady, frighteningly intelligent, physically tough, and if not conventionally beautiful, then at least sturdily handsome.’
After graduating, she worked for a bank before moving to Tesco, where she worked her way up to become head of its website. She was awarded a £4million golden hello by M&S when they poached her from Tesco in 2011 to revamp their internet store.
The eventual relaunch of the website in February 2014 was hampered by technical i ssues despite a £150million makeover. The firm dismissed this as teething problems, but later revealed sales through the website between April and June that year fell by 8 per cent compared to the same period in 2013.
Mrs Wade-Gery was later put in charge of M&S’s stores as well as the online shop under the title ‘head of multi-channel retailing’.
In a rare interview recently, she said: ‘I can’t say that it’s been easy, but I think most of the stuff in life that is easy is not worth doing.’
Asked if she might succeed Mr Bolland as CEO, she said: ‘I have got plenty to get on with at the minute, thank you. Who knows what the future holds? Marc is clearly really enjoying what he is doing.’
Mrs Wade-Gery has also spoken widely about the lack of women at the top of British business, and has said quotas may be needed to redress the imbalance.
M&S’s style director Belinda Earl was the first chief executive of a major public company to go on maternity leave, taking just six weeks off from her role at the time as head of Debenhams in 2001. Helen Weir, the current finance director at M&S, also had her maternity leave disclosed on the stock market in 2002 when she was working at DIY group Kingfisher.
M&S said Mrs Wade-Gery will go on maternity leave on September 1 and return in ‘early January’. A spokesman said: ‘Laura and her husband are looking forward to welcoming a child into their family.’
Her maternity leave was announced on the London Stock Exchange so investors would not be spooked by her temporary departure. Financial rules state that investors should be told if directors are going away for any extended period of time.