Asda’s turnaround king names heir to the throne

Allan Leighton was adamant. Just two months ago, Asda’s then-executive chairman insisted that his position as the sole leader of the discount grocer’s turnaround plans would not change any time soon. It had been rumoured that Asda was on the lookout for a chief executive to bolster its efforts to return to its heyday, but Leighton told City AM that any changes of leadership were “not imminent”. And when any change of leadership finally arrived, he said, it would come from within Asda’s existing top team. “The preference would be to appoint a CEO from inside the company, and we have a very highly talented group of executives, and my hope is that somebody would emerge from the group,” he had said. Just weeks later Leighton has already handed over the top job – to an outsider. David Potts, a former boss of rival Morrisons, took the reins as chief executive role with immediate effect, prompting Leighton to step back into a non-executive chairman position. This apparent U-tu