By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Spar group has appointed Angelo Swartz, who has been with the JSE-listed retailer for 16 years, to take on the top job from 1 October 2023.
Swartz is currently the Divisional Managing Director of the SPAR KwaZulu-Natal division.
He will also take over the role of Chairman of the Spar Guild on 1 Septmember 2023.
Executive Chairman CEO Mike Bosman will step down as Intermin CEO but will work closely with Swart to ensure a seamless transition.
In addition, Megan Pydigadu has been appointed to the new role of Group Chief Operating Office (COO) from 1 November 2023.
Both Swartz and Pydigadu will be appointed as executive directors of Spar, too.
On the newly created COO role, Spar said the position will “strengthen the group’s executive team and provide support to the CEO on the co-ordination and oversight of the operational and functional activities of the group as well as retailer profitability”.
“Pydigadu brings her extensive restructuring, operational and change management experience to the new role and will add valuable bench strength to the Spar Group executive team,” the retailer said. “She is a respected business leader who is highly experienced in corporate restructuring, governance and delivering operating efficiencies.”
She joined EOH as group finance director in January 2019 and has worked closely with CEO Stephen van Coller to rescue the IT services group, which became embroiled in a corruption scandal. Her duties included overseeing legal, financial, human resources, IT, communications, investor relations and business support digitisation.
The appointments at Spar come as the retailer fights fires on several fronts. This includes a botched SAP project at its distribution centre in KwaZulu-Natal that cost it R786-million in lost wholesale turnover in the six months to end-March 2023.