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Supervisory board

Our strategy, annual operating plan and budget is determined by the industry experts on our supervisory board

Members of the GS1 UK supervisory board
Meet the industry experts keeping GS1 UK on track for the future.


James Spittle - Chairman GS1 UK

James Spittle: Chairman
Our Chairman, James, has 30 years of experience in retailing, manufacturing and supply chain management. He’s worked with DSGI, Whitbread, Kingfisher and Tesco Stores.

James is:

  • the Chairman of G-ILs and Chairman of the trustees of CAN
  • Vice President and Council Board Member for the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport
  • an Advisory Board Member at Cranfield University Supply Chain and Logistics
 Richard Copperthwaite - GS1 UK Supervisory Board

Richard Copperthwaite: Vice Chairman 
Richard is IT Director at Tesco.com, responsible for IT delivery across the Grocery and Non Food e-commerce businesses. Prior to joining Tesco.com , Richard was UK IT Director for Head Office functions at Tesco PLC.

Richard has worked with many leading retailers in an IT and operations career spanning 22 years, specialising in non-food, logistics and the challenges of fast moving, high growth operations. 

Stefan Hesse - Vice Chairman GS1 UK

Stefan Hesse
Stefan has over 15 years experience in the retail and wholesale sector having worked in several country and headquarter organisations within METRO Group across emerging and mature markets.

He initially joined the Controlling Department of Metro Cash & Carry International whereby after two years he became Head of Controlling at Metro Bulgaria. In this role Stefan played a key role in a pioneering team to set up a completely new organisation in a green field investment.

Moving to Metro Romania in 2000 as Administration Director, Stefan joined the Executive Board and played a pivotal role in the phased turn around and high speed expansion of Metro Stores in the Romanian market.

After that Stefan joined the Board of Makro The Netherlands, being also responsible for the Dutch based Metro Cash & Carry International Finance Holding. From 2003 he took up responsibilities as Corporate Financial Controller of Metro Group in the German Headquarters. He has been Finance Director of Makro Cash & Carry UK with additional responsibilities for Supply Chain Management and IT since 2005. Stefan is now about to leave METRO Group and taking up a new assignment.

 

Rob Fraser
Rob joined the Operating Board at Sainsbury's as IT Director in July 2009, bringing many years of both IT and retail experience to the role. Rob was previously Vice President, Retail, Consumer & Transport at CSC, and spent ten years at Boots where he undertook a variety of IT roles including Group IT Director. He was also a member of the Boots Executive Committee and has worked for Rank Xerox and Marks & Spencer.

Marcus Dunsmore - GS1 UK Supervisory Board

Marcus Dunsmore
Marcus is the Customer Service & Logistics Director for Kraft, UK&I. In addition to his non-executive director role at GS1 he is also a member of the ECR SC Board.

Marcus joined Unilever after graduating from Nottingham University with an engineering degree. With Unilever, Marcus’s career spanned the breadth of the supply chain with senior management roles in Manufacturing, Logistics and Customer Service. In this last role, Marcus sat on Unilever’s Global Supply Chain Leadership Team leading a programme to drive a more responsive and customer driven SC at Unilever.

Marcus joined Cadbury Schweppes’ Global SC Leadership Team in 2006 as Global Logistics and Customer Operations Director and had functional responsibility for Planning and Logistics functions across the world.

In 2008, Marcus’s role broadened to encompass Operational Excellence across the breadth of the SC where he led highly successful Service Transformation, Working Capital reduction and Continuous Improvement programmes.

After Kraft acquired Cadbury, Marcus was appointed into his current role where he is responsible for delivering the integration of Cadbury and Kraft UK operations as well as leading Kraft’s UK&I Customer Service and Logistics activities.

 

Lawrence Hutter - GS1 UK Supervisory Board Lawrence Hutter
For over 20 years Lawrence has worked with many of the world’s best-known global consumer products manufacturers on a wide variety of strategic business performance improvement initiatives across the food, beverage, personal care, and household products sectors.

He is a consulting Strategy and Operations partner at Deloitte and focuses on brand protection, growth, improved profitability, trade account development and end-to-end value chain optimisation.

Lawrence is well known in the industry and well-regarded throughout the Consumer Business industry and the firm, and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences throughout the world.

Monique Picou
Monique is currently the Supply Network Operations Director for Procter & Gamble in the UK & Ireland and has worked in six locations in multiple categories across the supply chain.

Monique joined P&G in North America and carried out a range of roles in manufacturing. She then moved to P&G’s headquarters in Cincinnati as Category Supply Planner & Supply Chain Design leader for the company’s US coffee business.

From there, Monique moved into a global role, leading corporate training and development programmes for product supply before taking on the management of P&G’s manufacturing site in Augusta, Georgia. Then, following three years as Supply Network leader for P&G’s Western European Fabric Care operations, Monique joined P&G UK & Ireland in 2010. 

 

Duncan Lennard - GS1 UK Supervisory Board Duncan Lennard
Duncan is responsible for the Corporate business across the Brakes Group. He has been instrumental in developing new and innovative customer solutions that have driven strong sales growth, and benefit for customers.

Duncan began his career at Unilever. Having trained as an engineer he progressed through a series of cross functional roles in different parts of the world including running manufacturing plants, realigning the global R&D programme and the launching of an ice cream business in the Middle East. He moved to Walkers as Vice President of Supply Chain where he introduced a stockless supply chain, and then to Marketing at Coca Cola to develop the juice drinks offering. His innovative spirit saw him start, develop and sell a multi-channel retail service business that was the forerunner of the current internet trading platforms.

 John Macfarlane - GS1 UK Supervisory Board John Macfarlane
John has a wealth of business experience, and is currently Customer Development Operations Director for Unilever UK and Ireland.

He has held senior management positions in Unilever in customer and category development and has worked closely with all the major UK retailers.

John is responsible for the GDS initiative for Unilever UK, and for the development of e-Business processes. His team works closely with GS1 UK. They take part in the DSG working groups and the UK Technical Advisory Committee, helping drive business benefits through the adoption of global standards.

  Chris Poole
Chris is married with three grown up children and lives in Wokingham, Berkshire.

He is currently the GB Supply Chain Director for Diageo with responsibility for customer service, demand planning physical distribution and customer supply relationships.

He previously worked within the Supply Chain sector with B&Q, the DIY Retailer, PA Consulting and Procter and Gamble. 

 Lee Tate - GS1 UK Supervisory Board Lee Tate
Lee has held a number of Board Level positions in a long career in the IT industry including Head of Management Services for the Financial Times, Head of IT for the Government of Hong Kong, and CEO of INS running the Tradanet service in collaboration with the ANA.

He has been either Chairman or a non-executive Director of a number of technology companies in both Europe and the USA, in a wide variety of industries including retail, banking, and telecoms.

A graduate in English and Philosophy, he is also a Fellow of the British Computer Society and a Chartered IT Professional.
He is the longest serving director of GS1 and has served on the Nominations Committee, the Remuneration Committee, the Audit and Risk Committee and the IT Steering Committee.

Chris Wilber - GS1 UK Supervisory Board Chris Wilber
Chris is Director of Infrastructure for the NHS and Department of Health Technology Office, which provides technical advice and guidance to the entire NHS.

The role reports to the NHS and Department of Health Chief Technology Officer, and encompasses Infrastructure Security, Identity and Access Management, Collaboration Systems, Platform Standards Policies and Guidance, and Digital Communications. A key component of this portfolio is the promotion of RFID and Barcoding standards through the NHS, using GS1 standards.

Prior to joining the NHS, Chris worked in the telecommunications industry gaining experience across multiple fixed and mobile network operators and consultancies throughout the world.

The Executive Directors of the GS1 UK supervisory board are Gary Lynch, Dave Crapnell and Andrew Osborne.