Twenty-eight years following the till across Europe

Mandate

Replace an end-of-life till platform without disrupting trading, make stores and distribution centres able to trade through outages, and put customer data on a footing the board could defend.

Outcomes

• Moved 5,240 checkouts in 612 stores to a new till platform between January 2023 and November 2024 without any store losing the ability to trade.
• Contained a February 2023 ransomware attack to one distribution centre and restored its warehouse system in 82 hours without paying a ransom.
• Added a second card acquirer and limited offline acceptance; 97 per cent of card payments completed during a September 2025 processor outage.
• Cut fresh shrink from 4.6 to 3.9 per cent of fresh sales with category-gated machine-learning ordering, about €11m a year.
• Deleted 1.1 million dormant loyalty profiles and moved personalised offers onto a consent basis reviewed by the data protection officer.

Decisions in context

I succeeded Ravessa's long-serving CIO in January 2021, after a board-led search that included external candidates. The company had come through the 2020 surge in online orders with its systems intact but its till platform near the end of its supported life, its distribution network flat and connected, and a loyalty database that had grown for fifteen years without anyone deleting anything. My mandate from the chief executive was to replace the tills without hurting trading, to make the business resilient and to give the board a defensible position on data. The ransomware attack in February 2023 and the payments outage that December reordered the work, and the till programme was planned around both. I lead 380 employees and about 240 contractor staff, with seven direct reports, and I present to the Audit and Control Committee every quarter. Our 2026 technology budget is €105 million, about 2.4 per cent of sales.

Reason for the move

Current role. Not seeking an executive move; considering one independent non-executive seat with the consent of Ravessa's chief executive and board.

Mandate

Make the store estate and the distribution network reliable enough to support growth, and open the systems of a new distribution centre.

Outcomes

• Gave all 571 stores a second, independent network path, cutting store network incidents that stopped tills from about 410 a year to under 90 by 2020.
• Opened the warehouse systems of the Guadalajara distribution centre in October 2019 on schedule.
• Raised online grocery capacity from about 4,000 to 11,500 orders a week within five weeks in spring 2020.
• Introduced the in-store servers that later allowed stores to trade for three days without central systems.

Decisions in context

I joined Ravessa in September 2017 to lead store and supply-chain systems, reporting to the CIO, with a team of 140 and five direct reports. The stores were connected by single lines, and an ordinary cable fault could stop a supermarket's tills for an afternoon. Over two years we gave every store a second connection from a different carrier and placed a small server in each store that held prices, promotions and the product file. In 2019 we opened the warehouse systems at our new Guadalajara distribution centre, which took over supply of the Madrid and Castilla-La Mancha stores. The spring of 2020 tested all of it at once: online orders nearly tripled in five weeks while store colleagues worked under new safety rules. We raised online capacity from about 4,000 to 11,500 orders a week by adding picking slots in stores, not by building anything new.

Reason for the move

Appointed CIO on my predecessor's retirement, after a search that included external candidates.

Mandate

Replace an ageing merchandising system, launch online sales and bring card security up to the standard the new private-equity investor expected.

Outcomes

• Launched online sales in 2014, reaching 4 per cent of revenue by 2016.
• Replaced the merchandising system in January 2015; after a nine-day replenishment failure, stabilised it and restored store availability to 96 per cent by March.
• Brought all stores within the card industry's data security standard by 2015, removing stored card numbers from store systems.
• Reduced IT operating cost per store by 18 per cent through consolidation of two data centres into one.

Decisions in context

My husband's work brought us to Madrid in 2012, and I joined Droguerías Ambrela as IT director, reporting to the chief executive, with a team of 58. The chain sold household goods, personal care and perfumery through about 400 stores, and a private-equity fund bought a 40 per cent stake in 2013 with clear expectations about controls and growth. I launched online sales in 2014 and brought every store within the card industry's data security standard. The defining event was the merchandising cutover of January 2015, which I led on a date that suited the financial year rather than the Epiphany gift peak and the winter sales. Replenishment failed for nine days and some stores fell below 80 per cent availability. We stabilised the system by March. I studied supply chain management at weekends during these years, partly because of what that January taught me.

Reason for the move

Wanted the scale and supply-chain complexity of grocery, with fresh food and own distribution; Ravessa approached me in 2017.

Mandate

Lead the Slovak euro changeover at the tills, then move five countries from four till platforms to one group standard.

Outcomes

• Converted 160 Slovak stores for the euro on 1 January 2009 without a store closing.
• Moved about 1,420 stores from four till platforms to one standard by early 2012.
• Ran the group's first assessment against the card industry's data security standard.
• Cut till-related service calls per store by about a third after standardisation.

Decisions in context

In February 2008 the group asked me to move from Bucharest to its Salzburg headquarters as head of store systems, reporting to the group CIO. My first assignment was Slovakia's adoption of the euro on 1 January 2009. Our 160 Slovak stores had to show prices in two currencies for months beforehand, accept both currencies for just over two weeks afterwards and give change only in euros, and the tills had to do all of it correctly from the first customer of the year. We converted every store overnight and none closed. I then spent three years moving about 1,420 stores in five countries from four till platforms to one standard. The technology was the easy part. Each country manager had reasons why their stores were different, and some of the reasons were right, so the standard ended with a small number of agreed national variations.

Reason for the move

My husband's work took him to Madrid, and I wanted to run a whole IT function rather than one part of a group's.

Mandate

Open the technology of new stores as the subsidiary expanded, and run the country's systems through two major changes in the rules.

Outcomes

• Opened the systems of 96 new stores, most in the week before they began trading.
• Converted every till and system for the redenomination of the leu on 1 July 2005.
• Rebuilt import and tax processes for EU membership from 1 January 2007.
• Introduced a store helpdesk that answered in Romanian and Hungarian.

Decisions in context

I joined Grünauer's Romanian subsidiary in April 2002, after it had used my previous employer's software and decided to build its own team. I started as store systems manager with three colleagues and became IT manager for Romania in 2005, reporting to the country finance director. The subsidiary grew from 22 to 118 supermarkets in five years, and I opened the systems of 96 of them, often sleeping in a hotel near the site in the week before opening. On 1 July 2005 Romania redenominated the leu, so that ten thousand old lei became one new leu, and every till, price label and report had to change overnight. On 1 January 2007 Romania joined the European Union, and goods from Austria and Hungary stopped crossing a customs border, which changed our import and tax systems completely.

Reason for the move

Asked by the group to move to Salzburg to lead store systems across five countries.

Mandate

Develop and support point-of-sale software for small retailers and connect it to fiscal cash registers.

Outcomes

• Connected the company's till software to fiscal printers from six manufacturers.
• Supported installations at about 300 shops and small supermarkets.
• Wrote the stock module later used by the company's first supermarket customers.

Decisions in context

I joined Codrisoft in September 1998, three months after graduating, as an analyst-programmer. The company sold point-of-sale and stock programs to small shops and supermarkets, and a law passed in 1999 obliged most Romanian retailers to record their sales on electronic fiscal cash registers. For three years I wrote the software that connected our programs to fiscal printers from six manufacturers, and I spent many evenings on the telephone to shopkeepers whose printer had stopped. From 2000 I led a group of three. One of our customers was the Romanian subsidiary of an Austrian grocery group that was opening its first supermarkets. When it decided to build its own technology team in 2002, it asked me to join, and I wanted to see retail from the inside rather than from the end of a support line.

Reason for the move

Joined a customer, the Romanian subsidiary of an Austrian grocery group, to work inside retail rather than sell to it.