Say what you will about Euan Sutherland; he must interview well.
Having walked out of the Co-op in a huff after his £3.6 million pay deal was leaked to the press, he was hired by Superdry, where he got kicked out three years later by investors having seen the share price crash. Both times he scooped big redundancy cheques. Today he’s picked up another doubtless big-paying role running Saga.
It’s fair to say Saga isn’t exactly premier league. The place is struggling to find a purpose, with activist investors snapping at its heels. One assumes there wasn’t a long queue of top gun CEO heroes wanting the job. More like a parade from Dad’s Army.
The board discussed Sutherland’s damaged goods factor but decided both Co-op and Superdry were hospital passes few could have coped with.
At the Co-op, Sutherland faced a dysfunctional organisation, with too much power dispersed to regional committees with their own agendas. He laid the ground to reform it, and was regularly briefed against for his troubles. His petulant departure made him look ridiculous, but you can understand his frustrations. Sort of.
More troubling is his time at Superdry, when he brought in misguided initiatives such as kids’ ranges totally wrong for the supposedly edgy brand. He’d say shareholders backed him at the time, but that’s no excuse for failing to grasp the Superdry ethos.
At Saga, he has big judgment calls to make: whether to keep cruise ships and insurance together in one group being the biggest. Let’s hope it doesn’t end up with failure and another redundancy pay-off this time.
