Kingfisher has announced the appointment of Kate Seljeflot as chief people officer. Seljeflot joins from Costa Coffee, the coffeehouse chain owned by Coca-Cola, where she is chief people officer.

Seljeflot is an experienced professional with substantial retail and transformation skills, built on an international career in human resources with Costa Coffee, Diageo and Shell. She joined Costa Coffee in September 2016 where she led the global people strategy, with a focus on building the right organisation and capabilities to drive change and support the business’ growth plans.

Before joining Costa, Seljeflot spent 14 years at Diageo, most recently as Global Talent Director. In that role she led on all aspects of Diageo’s talent strategy, including its approach to diversity and inclusion.

Seljeflot is a British national and she will be based at the head office in Paddington. She joins Kingfisher on 23 March and will be part of the Group Executive team. She has lived in France and is a strong French speaker.

Kingfisher also announces that Martin Lee and Adela Smeu will become members of the Group Executive team.

Martin Lee is appointed as Group Chief Supply Chain Officer, a role that he has been successfully covering in an interim capacity since last summer. Lee has spent a total of 25 years at Kingfisher and was previously at other home improvement companies in international supply chain, merchandising, IT and sourcing roles. Upon his return to Kingfisher in 2015, he led the supply chain at Screwfix and then B&Q. Martin will keep responsibility in parallel for the B&Q supply chain.

Adela Smeu, in her current role as CEO of Romania, also joins the Group Executive. Smeu joined Kingfisher in 2015 as Finance Director for Brico De´po^t Romania. She was appointed to CEO of Romania in 2017. Prior to joining Kingfisher Smeu spent eight years at Obi, the international home improvement retailer, in Romania, where she was director of finance and administration. She previously spent four years in finance roles at United Technologies in France and six years at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Romania.

The changes announced, combined with others made since September, complete Kingfisher’s Group Executive team, which is listed in full at the end of this release.