Whitbread Appoints Headhunters As it Seeks to Replace Alan Parker

It now appears that Whitbread has appointed headhunters to help find a successor for Alan Parker, who is expected to announce this summer that he is retiring as the chief executive of the leisure group. Mr Parker, who is now age 63, was expected to complete a five year stint when he was promoted to the top job from head of hotels in 2004. However, due to the fact that his success worked in Whitbread’s favor, he was allowed to stay past his scheduled departure time.

Alan Parker has been able to steer Whitbread through some very rough times. Now, after many sales, Whitbread is focused on three main areas. They are focused on their budget hotels, pub restaurants and coffee shops. All of these performed very well during the economic downturn.

There are a lot of qualified candidates in the Whitbread group. Some have pointed to Chris Rogers, the group’s finance director, as being good for the job. Another candidate that some say could be perfect for the job is Patrick Dempsey, the managing director of the hotel and restaurant division. He is also the former head of Forte Hotels UK.

Despite these candidates, many analysts are saying that an outsider could be the one to get the job. In fact, one of the early favorites is Carl Leaver, who recently quit as head of Marks and Spencer’s international division. He is, however, best known in the City for his tenure as chief executive of De Vere Group.

Recently Whitbread has declined to comment about the matter at hand. However, the company did say that the board was very likely to start tackling the succession issue this year. Although it does appear that they have yet to launch a formal process, they did note that they are laying the groundwork.