New Asos chief takes on old boss at M&S

Crozier and Norman battle to win fashion war

ASOS’S new chairman Adam crozier will go headto-head against his old boss Archie Norman who runs marks & Spencer.

in what was seen as a major coup for the trendy fashion website, city bigwig crozier will join Asos in November having previously held top jobs at the Football Association, Royal mail and itV.

the move pits the 54-year- old against Norman, 64, who is chairman of m&S, which is struggling on the High Street.

When Norman was chairman of itV, he hired crozier to be his chief executive.

But the two will now face-off as Asos and m&S fight for business.

Asos symbolically overtook m&S in market value last year, even though its turnover is just a fraction of its more established rival.

the website, aimed at fashion conscious 20- somethings, was founded in 2000, has annual sales of £1.9bn and is valued at £5.2bn on the stock market.

marks & Spencer, which has been on the High Street for more than a century, sells more than £10bn of goods a year and has a market value of £4.9bn. crozier said yesterday: ‘the Asos story is truly impressive and i am tremendously excited to become part of it. i’m greatly looking forward to working with the team that is building a global powerhouse in online fashion.’

married father-of-two crozier is also chairman of costa coffee and premier inn owner Whitbread, cinema chain Vue entertainment and Stage entertainment, the theatre production firm behind the Lion King and Les miserables.

Holding a large number of chairmanships at major public companies is generally frowned upon and described as ‘overboarding’.

Shareholder advisory group iSS Governance says: ‘A board chairman is not expected to hold an executive position elsewhere, or more than one other chairmanship position.’

James Jarvis, corporate governance analyst at the institute of Directors, said ‘ experience of diverse boardroom environments may be beneficial to a director’s effectiveness’.

But he added: ‘However, organisations need to ensure that their board members do not spread themselves too thinly.’

Asos shares climbed 2.2pc, or 130p, to 6250p, while m&S was up 0.5pc, or 1.4p, to 299.9p.