Senior independent director arrived just two years ago, and shareholders deserve an explanation
Richard Cousins’ arrival as a non-executive director of Tesco was greeted with much fanfare in October 2014. It came soon after the supermarket group confessed to a £263m overstatement of profits. A beleaguered board required reinforcement and Cousins was a perfect heavyweight appointment. He is the successful no-nonsense boss of Compass Group and came with his own crisis-fighting experience, having been recruited by the contract caterer after a 2006 scandal involving a UN contract. Nobody was surprised when Tesco bumped Cousins up to be its senior independent director (SID) last April.
Now he has resigned from the board with immediate effect. Why? No one wants to offer a proper explanation, which is feeble. Non-executive posts can run for 10 years. If the senior person in the role has quit after two, shareholders expect better than a brush-off. They, after all, paid Cousins’ £115,000 fees last year and the SID is meant to have a direct connection with the owners.
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