Ex-Virgin Money chief Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia to head Salesforce UK

Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia, one of Britain’s most prominent businesswomen, is to make a surprising comeback to a frontline executive role by taking over the UK operations of Salesforce, the American cloud software giant.

It is understood that Dame Jayne-Anne, whose most recent executive job was as the boss of Virgin Money, will be announced on Tuesday as Salesforce’s UK and Ireland CEO.

Her appointment, which is understood to take effect in October, will catapult her into the ranks of the most senior managers at a company that has become a global leader in customer relationship management software.‎

Salesforce, which is run by joint CEOs Marc Benioff – who also serves as the company’s chairman – and Keith Block, announced plans earlier this year to invest $2.5bn in its UK operations.

Dame Jayne-Anne’s recruitment by the New York Stock Exchange-listed company, which has a market value of $127.5bn, will end lingering speculation that she is interested in the chief executive’s vacancy at Royal Bank of Scotland.

Her departure from Virgin Money was announced in the wake of its £1.7bn takeover by CYBG, which is now rebranding its Clydesdale and Yorkshire banking operations under the corporate name founded by Sir Richard Branson.

Dame Jayne-Anne, who was named Leader of the Year at last years National Business Awards, is due to join the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee next year, has joined and stepped down from the board of Stagecoach, the transport company, in recent months.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that she was canvassing investor support for Snoop, a new consumer-facing venture aimed at generating savings on household bills.

It was unclear how far that fundraising had progressed, but insiders said Dame Jayne-Anne still intended to chair the start-up.

Sources said it was conceivable that Salesforce’s venture arm could invest in Snoop, although the prospect of this could not be verified on Monday night.

One of the UK’s most recognisable businesswomen, Dame Jayne-Anne was honoured in January for her contribution to financial services and women in the finance industry.

Under her stewardship, the Treasury’s Women in Finance charter has now committed most of the biggest banks, insurers and asset managers to a series of pledges regarding the recruitment and treatment of female employees.

As chief executive of Virgin Money, she oversaw the acquisition of Northern Rock from the Government in 2011 and its subsequent integration and stock market flotation.

Earlier this year, Dame Jayne-Anne declined to comment on the details of her proposed start-up but said: “I learned from Richard Branson that there’s nothing more exciting than setting up a new business.”

Her re-emergence in a major executive post will make her one of the top Britons working in a major US-listed company.

Salesforce recently acquired Tableau, another cloud enterprise company, for $15.7bn – the biggest takeover in its history.

The American company has also struck an alliance with the Chinese internet giant Alibaba to distribute its products in China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

From a standing start in 1999, Salesforce is now one of the most richly valued software companies in the world.

Dame Jayne-Anne could not be reached for comment on Monday, while Salesforce declined to comment.‎

Sports Direct regrets saving House of Fraser from closure

Sports Direct says it regrets rescuing House of Fraser in its much-delayed results, which revealed a €674m (£605m) tax bill from Belgium authorities.

The firm, which bought the department store out of administration a year ago, said: “If we had the gift of hindsight we might have made a different decision in August 2018.”

It described problems at House of Fraser as “nothing short of terminal”.

It added it was in talks with Belgian officials to resolve the tax bill.

The full-year results had been due to be published on 15 July but were delayed until 26 July, in part, because of uncertainty over the future trading performance of House of Fraser.

‘House of horrors’

Those results had been expected to be published on Friday morning, but were subject to continuous delays throughout the day.

It has now emerged that Sports Direct, which is majority-owned and run by billionaire Mike Ashley, was hit by the tax bill by Belgian authorities on 25 July.

The company said the request for back taxes is linked to the way its goods are moved throughout the European Union and are taxed in Belgium.

Meanwhile, it also said that its chief financial officer of two years, Jon Kempster, is stepping down and will be succeeded by his deputy, Chris Wootton.

Commenting on House of Fraser, Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Markets.com, said: “It’s a House of horrors, more like.”

He said Sports Direct had “every reason to regret buying House of Fraser now”.

“It’s such a shame as there were such high hopes,” he added.

Mr Ashley had vowed to turn House of Fraser into the “Harrods of the High Street” when he bought the department store chain out of administration for £90m last August.

However, on Friday he said: “In the short-term you can’t justify it. It’s like buying a broken down car at the roadside – you have to get it to the garage to fix it.”

But he said: “Long-term, we’d like to think we are hopeful of where we are going.”