Richard Baker (born 6 August 1962) was CEO of

Boots Group Boots UK Limited (formerly Boots the Chemists), trading as Boots, is a British health and beauty retailer and pharmacy chain in the United Kingdom and other countries and territories including Ireland, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Thailand a ...

from 2003 to 2007. He has since served on a number of executive boards and launched private equity firm .

Early life and education

Baker graduated from

Downing College Downing College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge and currently has around 650 students. Founded in 1800, it was the only college to be added to Cambridge University between 1596 and 1869, and is often described as the olde ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

Career

Baker worked at Mars Confectionery for nearly 10 years, working his way up to sales and marketing director. He joined Asda Stores Ltd in 1995, where he worked for nine years, becoming Marketing Director in 1999, and ultimately chief operating officer in 2002, following their acquisition by

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

. In September 2003, Baker joined

as chief executive officer. The company had been reporting losses following its ill-advised move into its 'Wellbeing' services. Despite implementing a number of cost-cutting measures and extending opening hours, the company continued to struggle until October 2005 it announced it was to merge with competitor

Alliance Unichem Alliance Boots GmbH was a multinational pharmacy-led health and beauty group with corporate headquarters in Bern, Switzerland and operational headquarters in Nottingham and Weybridge, United Kingdom. The company had a presence in over 27 coun ...

. The announcement met with widespread opposition, but the merger was cleared by the OFT in February 2006 and completed in July that year. Baker became chief executive officer of the new Alliance Boots GmbH. In April 2007, after publishing annual results that showed a profit increase of 7.4%, Alliance Boots was sold to

private equity In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a t ...

firm KKR for £11.1 billion; the highest price ever paid by a private equity company for a British public company. Baker left the company on completion of the transaction. From 2008 to 2014, Baker served as non-executive chairman of

Virgin Active Virgin Active is a chain of health clubs in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Italy, Australia, Singapore, Thailand and the United Kingdom. History Virgin Active was founded in 1999. Their first club opened in Preston, Lancashire that year. I ...

. From 2009 to 2017, he served as chairman of the European Division of Groupe Aeroplan. From 2010 to 2018, he served as chairman of DFS. From 2014 to 2018, he served as non-executive director of

Whitbread Whitbread plc is a multinational British hotel and restaurant company headquartered in Houghton Regis, England. The business was founded as a brewery in 1742, and had become the largest brewery in the world by the 1780s. Its largest division ...

. In June 2019, Baker launched his own

firm, BD-Capital.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baker, Richard 1962 births Living people Alumni of Downing College, Cambridge British retail chief executives People educated at Bishop Vesey's Grammar School People from Stamford, Lincolnshire People from Woking Whitbread people