One of Woolworth's most senior executives, Julie Coates, has left after only 10 months, leaving behind the billion dollar, 10-year task of transforming the company’s entire supply chain and logistics operation.
Her exit leaves the crucial transformation process without a clear long-term leader, just at a time when bricks-and-mortar retailers such as Woolworths are scrambling to restructure their supply chain and logistics systems to cope with the shift to online shopping.
Woolworths said in a brief statement on Friday that Ms Coates, had decided to leave the $46 billion retail group ‘‘to pursue other career opportunities’’.
Prior to taking up the director of business transformation position, Ms Coates, a 12-year veteran of the company, was the boss of its merchandise chain Big W and sits on the board of its loss-making hardware joint venture Masters.
It was only in October that Ms Coates took on the business transformation project, dubbed Mercury 2, which marked Woolworths next phase of its supply chain innovation and overhaul.
She was at the centre of a working group that oversaw logistic operations that shifted more than 20 million cartons of goods each week and 3000 truck movements a day.
Woolworths said Ms Coates would leave the company in coming months but remain a member of the board that owns its Masters hardware chain until the end of the year.
It is unclear who will replace Ms Coates as the leader of the Mercury 2 project. Woolworths chief executive Grant O’Brien thanked Ms Coates for her ‘‘significant contribution to the company over many years’’ and wished her well in her future career.
