The ex-shopboy who staff nicknamed ‘Nails’

INSIDE Marks and Spencer’s lifeless glass offices in London’s Paddington, Steve Rowe was surprisingly relaxed and welcoming as he answered questions on yesterday’s disappointing results.

The new chief executive spoke plainly and honestly, before outlining his turnaround plans for the struggling brand. He even tossed in the odd joke for reporters.

There was certainly none of the management gobbledegook which punctuated meetings with his often tetchy predecessor, Marc Bolland, the icy Dutchman whose urbane appearance and lofty manner never quite seemed to quite fit with this most British of high street institutions.

Rowe, 48, however, is what you call an M&S ‘lifer’. He began his career as a Saturday boy at the firm’s Croydon store. Following a fouryear stint at Topshop after leaving school, he defected to M&S as he felt it offered a better career path. He has remained ever since.

He has worked across the company in store management, menswear and furniture and held a number of senior positions including director of retail and ecommerce.

In 2012, he followed in his father Joe’s footsteps by joining the M&S board – Rowe Snr served as a director until 2000 – when he became head of the food division.

Despite fierce competition from cut-price rivals Aldi and Lidl, Rowe kept the food division growing for 25 consecutive quarters on a like-for-like basis.

He bagged the biggest bonus paid to M&S executives last year after the retailer posted its first profits rise in four years.

Smartly, but not exuberantly, dressed and speaking with a clipped south London accent, Rowe is described as ‘collegiate’ and as a people person.

However, colleagues report that he’s not without steel, acquiring the soubriquet ‘nails’ from some of his underlings during his steady rise up the M&S ladder.

Married with three children, he’s a keen golfer and scuba diver as well as an ardent fan of Millwall Football Club, the south east London side whose notoriously rough-andready supporters like to chant: ‘No one likes us, we don’t care.’

Words that this quietly determined figure may himself come to live by in the tricky months ahead.