Jo Whitfield, CBE is a distinguished retail leader who served as Chief Executive of Food at The Co-operative Group from March 2017 to 2022. She became the first female CEO of a British food retailer and drove sustained like-for-like sales growth, led the £143 million Nisa acquisition early in her tenure, and pioneered sustainable innovations including eco-bike deliveries and in-aisle pay technology.
In her non-executive capacity, Jo re-joined Asda's board in February 2025 to help accelerate growth of the Asda Express convenience format. She also serves as non-executive-director at Factory International, bringing deep omni-channel retail expertise and governance strength.
From March 2023 until October 2024, Jo was CEO of Matalan, where she led a fast-paced turnaround: restructuring leadership, re-establishing value credentials, improving profitability, investing in colleague pay, and refreshing product quality and strategy
Prior to this, Jo was with Asda for eight years and held a number of leadership positions across the business. She joined as Finance Director of George and went on to hold roles as VP of George Operations, International and Strategy and finally VP of Asda General Merchandise, Money and Mobile.
Jo is a qualified Chartered Accountant having trained with Ernst & Young and subsequently moved into Industry. Throughout her career she has worked across various industry sectors and held leadership roles with businesses such as Northern Foods, GE Capital and Matalan.
Jo is an Ambassador for Girls Out Loud, a member of Women in Retail group and leads the Co-op Aspire Network, championing internal progression for all talented individuals. She was appointed CBE in the 2021 Honours for her leadership during the COVID-19 food supply response.
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