Waitrose has appointed Alex Lovell as its new head of loyalty, recruiting her from rival Sainsbury's where she spent nearly 12 years in various roles including head of loyalty and customer director for the Smart Charge EV business.

Lovell will report to Waitrose customer director Nathan Ansell in this newly created role, which was first reported on by The Grocer. Within this new role, Lovell will be responsible for all elements of loyalty, including the upcoming relaunch of the MyWaitrose scheme.

"I am delighted to welcome Alex as our head of loyalty for Waitrose," said Ansell. "She brings a wealth of experience and expertise to this role, most notably from her time as head of loyalty for Sainsbury's and Argos where she has a track record of delivering innovative, customer and commercially led change across grocery retail."

During her time at Sainsbury's, Lovell also worked as head of brand growth on its now discontinued Future Brands programme, alongside other roles in customer insights and as brand strategy manager.

The appointment comes as the upmarket grocer prepares to revamp its loyalty offering with a new pan-partnership scheme with John Lewis later this year. The initiative will replace the currently separate MyWaitrose and MyJohn Lewis programmes with a combined loyalty programme offering benefits across both retailers.

The partnership has had to delay the relaunch from its original early 2024 deadline due to initial work on the back-end infrastructure taking longer than expected.

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