Dan Elton, previously executive vice-president of customer at Asos, joins Ocado Retail after departing the fashion giant in April.
Ocado Retail has appointed Dan Elton as its new chief customer officer, starting today, following the marketer’s departure from Asos in April.
In a LinkedIn post confirming the appointment, Elton, formerly executive vice-president of customer at Asos, said he has “long admired Ocado from the outside” as a customer and has “been amazed by Ocado’s constant innovation of the customer experience”.
He credited Ocado’s “relentless focus on customers” and “ability to design, test and scale new products and experiences quickly”, as well as claiming it has “the most forward-thinking team in ecommerce”.
Elton previously held senior marketing positions at Made.com, Sainsbury’s and Tesco, before joining Asos in February 2023.
He takes over at Ocado Retail from Laura Harricks, whose new role is yet to be confirmed after she chose to step down from the position after five years.
In a statement, Ocado Retail said it is “delighted” Elton is joining the team, calling him a “highly experienced customer and commercial leader”.
It also thanked Harricks for her “huge impact” on the business and for “building a great team focused on delivering performance and living our values”.
This Much I Learned: Asos’s top marketer on transforming a brand
Marketing Week reported in February that Elton chose to leave Asos amid a restructure at the company, which saw the consolidation of customer and commercial into one team. This was labelled as “phase two” of its ambition to become a more customer-focused business.
Brand and creative strategy was also consolidated into one team, led by Vanessa Spence in the newly created role of executive vice-president of brand and creative. At the time in April, Asos said recruitment was underway for a new executive vice-president of commercial and customer.
Elton joins Ocado Retail at a time of growth, as it credited customer acquisition and a value push for delivering a 13.9% revenue boost in February, saying it had a “terrific year” as the “fastest growing grocer in the UK”.
The grocer also praised “improved marketing efficiency” for driving a “record-breaking Christmas” last year, after it decided to keep marketing spend flat in the first half of 2024.
It’s currently informed by a “back to the future” strategy in relation to prices, marketing and budgets.
In January, its CEO Hannah Gibson said, when it comes to marketing, the business is “continuing with customer customisation, looking at the channel mix, getting the messaging right and continually assessing the details on how to drive that marketing efficiency”.
