Cause of Richard Brasher’s downfall

Tesco commercial director Richard Brasher’s failure to secure the
chief executive role at Tesco has been revealed at the BRC Annual
Retail Conference this week.

In his earlier years at the company he was sent out to manage a store.
He got it badly wrong over Christmas and was running a store with very
little stock and lots of empty shelves.

He remembers it as being like Zulu Dawn where shoppers “just kept on
coming”. So bad did it get that one shopper asked him: “Why are you
even open?”

His response: “Good question madam.” So it would seem Brasher’s card
had been marked many years ago. Philip Clarke’s elevation to the CEO
role at Tesco looked like a certainty many years ago.