Halfords names Simon Wherry as delivery director

Halfords has appointed Simon Wherry as delivery director for the group. Simon joins Halfords Senior Leadership Team and the group’s growing IT function. According to the company, Wherry brings experience in business change delivery, underpinned by technology. He joins from management consultancy firm, CapGemini, where he was a programme director working in the defence manufacturing arena.

Prior to this, Wherry has held numerous roles in which he has worked with or for major retailers across Europe. This includes Kingfisher, owner of B&Q, Screwfix, Castorama, Brico Depot and Woolworths where he held multiple transformational change delivery roles, most recently as Portfolio & Governance Director. Whilst at Kingfisher, he was responsible for the major multi-year programme to deploy common ways of working underpinned by a unified technology stack across the group. In a consulting capacity, he has also previously held roles at BP Convenience Retail (US) and Smyths Toys.

At Halfords, his role as Delivery Director will be pivotal for the combined success of technology, data, and innovation across the group. He will be leading the effective delivery of all technology related projects and programmes, as well as the group’s engineering capability. This includes Value Stream (Agile) delivery, the Agile Centre of Excellence and the Business Analysis function.

Neil Holden, Chief Information Officer at Halfords commented: “We are delighted to have Simon on board at an exciting time for the group. Simon brings invaluable experience in change management and technology at a time when Halfords is undergoing a transformation to a more Services focused business, underpinned by technology and our Avayler platform.”

Halfords customers shop at more than 400 Halfords stores, 3 Performance Cycling stores (trading as Tredz and Giant), over 600 garages (trading as Halfords Autocentres, McConechy’s, Universal and National Tyres) and have access to 230 mobile service vans (trading as Halfords Mobile Expert, Tyres on the Drive and National) and 192 Commercial vans.