Whitbread (LON:WTB), the owner of Premier Inn hotels and Costa Coffee, has named Lloyds Banking Group executive Alison Brittain as its new boss, succeeding Andy Harrison.
Brittain, 50, will become the sixth female boss of a FTSE 100 company when she joins the firm in January next year, leaving her director role at the retail division of Lloyds (LON:LLOY).
Chairman, Richard Baker said he was delighted to have secured someone of Alison's calibre. “We ran an extensive search and selection process and Alison was the standout candidate from a very strong field,” he said.
The appointment comes after current chief Andy Harrison announced his decision to step down from Whitbread last month, citing the pressure of running three big companies in a row for his decision.
He ran EasyJet (LON:EZJ) before joining Whitbread and before that he was the boss of RAC, the car breakdown service. Harrison will take over as chairman of Dunelm (LON:DNLM), the homeware retailer, in July.
Last month Whitbread announced underlying annual pre-tax profit up 18.5% to £488mln in the year to February and increased its full-year dividend by 19% to 82p.
The company has capitalised on the rise in UK coffee consumption and increased use of budget hotels, especially by business travellers.
Whitbread has mapped up plans for 900 hotels by the end of 2020 and has pledged to increase sales at its Costa coffee business from this year's £1.4bn to £2.5bn in 2020.
The group said the achievement of its milestones for Costa and Premier Inn would create 15,000 jobs in the UK over the next five years.