Former Waitrose md Steven Esom has been appointed as chairman of BRC Trading Ltd, the commercial arm of the British Retail Consortium (BRC).
Mr Esom was also formerly executive director of food at Marks and Spencer, and is currently an operating partner at Langholm Capital and chairman of the Food Standards Agency's Retailer Hygiene Rating Scheme.

He will take over at the beginning of April from David Adams, who has been acting as interim chairman since Gordon Brown stepped down from the role in August 2010. Mr Adams will become a non-executive director of BRC Trading Ltd.

BRC director general Stephen Robertson said: "BRC Trading is going from strength to strength. It's a measure of success that someone of Stephen's calibre has chosen to take on this role. As it enters its second decade, we have big ambitions to grow the company further and we are all really looking forward to working with Steven on the next phase of our development."

BRC Trading was founded in 2001 and generates non-subscription income for the BRC by providing a range of services. These include the BRC Global Standards and Directory Database, plus BRC events, publications and other products.