British Retail Consortium's (BRC) commercial arm appoints Keith Evans as its new chief executive officer.
British Retail Consortium Trading Limited (BRC Trading) generates non-subscription income for the BRC through providing a range of services, including the BRC Global Standards and Directory Database, the training associated with its product-safety certification scheme as well as BRC events, publications and other products.

It has grown over eight years from two part-time staff to an 18-strong organisation making an annual contribution to the BRC of more than a million pounds.

Keith Evans will succeed John Cormode who retires on September 17, 2009 after eight successful years in the role. Mr Cormode plans to undertake doctoral research at the University of Brighton.

Mr Evans has over 25 years of blue-chip retail experience, most recently with DSGi where he held a number of senior positions, including commercial director for Currys. Prior to that he was trading director (non-food) with J Sainsbury where was part of the plan to drive its considerable expansion in clothing and non-food.

He was appointed trading director (showroom and building) at B&Q in 2000 after a long tenure at Marks and Spencer where he started his career.