Cardiff Business Club was granted a pre-event interview with Monday's speaker, Ewan Venters - CEO of Fortnum & Mason. Here's what he had to say.

1. On Monday 11th
January we welcomed the Fortnum & Mason chief
executive, Ewan Venters to the Club.
Since taking over the reigns of the 307-year old luxury retailer in 2012,
the company has recorded record profits under his watch thanks in part
to a hamper renaissance, the introduction of a number of satellite sites
and the revamping of the company’s website, which has expanded its
customer base to over 150 countries worldwide.
We were delighted to have the opportunity to interview Ewan shortly
before he took to the stage to address the Club at St David’s Hotel. Here
is what he had to say.
CBC: In an interview with The Telegraph last month you described Fortnum & Mason
as the ‘smart grocer in London’ and making the company “more relevant again to
customers” – 40% of which are the so-called ‘tourist trade’. What do you mean by
that?
EV: It was the will of the family [which owns Fortnum & Mason] that in order to
secure Fortnum’s future we had to become more relevant to more customers, more
often. To do this, we have to target UK domiciles in order to encourage coming to our
stores on a more frequent basis.
The fact is that we sell fantastic beef, we sell wonderful smoked salmon, we sell milk
and in our immediate area in Piccadilly we have nearly 600 residential postal
addresses. So why wouldn’t a business such as ours try to ensure that those people
– as a minimum – start to use us on a more frequent basis. But of course we
wouldn’t be able to survive on that alone.
CBC: During your tenure you have seen the number of UK customers shopping
there rise from 30% to 60%, has this shift been the result of a deliberate policy and
how has this shift been achieved?
EV: We had to get to a point where we were able to re-engage with British
consumers across the entire UK and make Fortnum’s part of their London
experience. Or indeed to use fortnumandmason.com.
So yes, the rise in the number of UK customers was the result of a very deliberate
and focused effort – and it’s working. The way we have done it is partly through
product offer, partly through pricing and partly through marketing and public relations.
But it also through the events and satellite stores that we have opened, such as the
opening at St Pancras station, Heathrow Terminal 5 and the pop-up store at

2. Somerset House each winter. All of these activations have been a way of getting
people thinking about the brand again and starting to re-familiarise themselves with
who we are.
CBC: Like many businesses Fortnum & Mason has become more commonly
associated with a primary product line - in your case luxury hampers. You stated that
you want to revamp your product range, how can you achieve that without alienating
what The Telegraph described as your ‘loyal band of traditionalists’?
EV: Yes it is a challenge. However, you can still achieve your goal if you retain your
focus on product quality and making sure that whatever you do is genuinely
authentic. For instance, if we were to deploy an array of ‘glamorous’ marketing
activities that appealed just to a certain ‘type’ of customer, then these efforts would
be short-lived.
Rather everything that we as a team have done and continue to do is focused on the
core values of the organisation and in only doing things that offer true authenticity
and expertise in what we do. More important is to be seen as a real expert – an
expert curator in everything that we do.
We can look to the past to inform the future and I believe that we have done that with
great sensitivity and we will continue to do more of it.
CBC: How do you differentiate Fortnum’s from other high-end retailers, such as
Liberty or Harrods?
EV: We are Fortnum & Mason, I don’t think there is anyone who you can truly
compare us to not just here in the UK, but in the world. The brands you refer to could
probably compare themselves to a much wider competition set than we can. But who
else can say they have a high-end, private label, food and luxury business?
There are some wonderful stores that sell a range of incredible food products, but
they don’t have the strength of the brand that is Fortnum & Mason. Remember, we
have been in business for 307 years and although what I am doing may seem clever,
it is no more than what my predecessors at different times in the company’s history
have done.
We have a tradition of re-evaluating who and what we are and making sure that our
offer is current and reflective. So the ‘loyal band of traditionalists’ that The Telegraph
refers to are only traditionalists of the last 70 years or so, because they weren’t
around 307 years ago.
CBC: Since you have been on board, the company has recorded record profits.
What do you put this down to?
EV: It was clear to me from the outset of my tenure that we wouldn’t be able to get
enough growth out of Piccadilly alone in order to make the company more profitable
and sustainable.
There have been two key areas of focus for the business. One is the drive for us to
be better shopkeepers, and therefore sell more product to more people. And second,
having the satellite store strategy combined with an online focus has allowed us to
generate profit outside of Piccadilly.
These areas all contribute to the overall running costs of the business. It’s quite

3. simply a case of identifying how to get more profit revenue from other channels such
as online, which can account for as much as a third of all our sales, particularly
during the Christmas period.
CBC: Are there plans to venture out in the way that Selfridges and Harvey Nicholls
did?
EV: It is highly unlikely that will happen, our focus will be on expanding our digital
presence and in potential new travel retail locations à la our shop and bar at Heathrow
Terminal 5. We could replicate this model in additional terminals in different parts of the world.
Interview conducted by Paul MacKenzie-Cummins