Liquor Marketing Group (LMG) has announced the appointment of Jonathan Harrison, who will be joining the company as Chief Financial Officer.
Harrison joins the retail group with a wealth of industry experience, such as nine years at Lion in several senior finance roles, including Head of Finance for Malt Shovel. Prior to that, he also spent 10 years with PwC in a senior role with its Risk and Controls team.
“I am very excited to be joining LMG. Transitioning from supplier to retailer focus allows me to leverage my existing industry experience while providing some fresh perspective on the market,” said Harrison.
“I look forward to working with the LMG team and their members to use strategic initiatives and insights to drive sustainable growth and continue the group’s unrelenting focus on driving value for members.”
Speaking about Harrison’s appointment in the newly created role, LMG CEO Gavin Saunders said: “Jonny Harrison joins our team with more than 19 years’ experience helping businesses tackle complex problems and designing strategies and solutions to drive sustainable growth.
“Jonny’s experience as a finance leader with strong commercial focus will be tremendously advantageous for LMG and I look forward to Jonny working with our board and executive team in accelerating growth in our business and delivering maximum value for our members.”
The creation of this role was driven by great growth for LMG over the past four years – with more than 1400 stores under its Bottlemart, SipnSave, Harry Brown and Thirsty Camel WA banners, membership volumes have grown more than 50 per cent in this period. As its grown, the membership-owned and operated group has been able to keep operating costs low while investing revenue growth into advertising, price support, store refresh, digital and e-commerce platforms.
Saunders added: “LMG’s investment in advertising, selling and member support has more than doubled over the past four years. This increase has created the opportunity and need for the addition of Jonny Harrison’s role as Chief Financial Officer. Jonny brings to the role vast experience in market pricing analysis, business development, systems and financial management which will support LMG to further drive our members’ sales and profit performance.
“LMG’s focus remains meeting the customers need to drive sales growth for LMG members who operate under the Bottlemart, SipnSave, Harry Brown or Thirsty Camel WA retail banners. Sales growth of +32.6 per cent over the past two years is testament to winning with customers and it is pleasing to give our independent members growth ahead of what has been reported by other major liquor retailers.”