Whitbread appoints Dominic Paul as new chief executive: Whitbread has appointed Dominic Paul as its next chief executive. Paul will succeed Alison Brittain, who has decided to retire from full-time executive life at the end of the financial year 2023. Paul, who is chief executive of Domino’s Pizza Group having joined the business in May 2020, will join Whitbread early in January 2023. Whitbread stated: “Dominic is an experienced senior executive, with a very strong operational and commercial record in the travel, leisure, and hospitality sector, and most recently served as chief executive of Domino's Pizza Group. He led the business through the covid pandemic and has delivered a strong period of sales growth and value creation and aligned all stakeholders behind a growth strategy for the future. Dominic is well known to Whitbread and joins with a good understanding of the business having been a member of the Whitbread executive committee and managing director of Costa Coffee for three years, overseeing its significant growth in both the UK and internationally ahead of the sale of the business to Coca-Cola. Prior to this, Dominic was senior vice-president of international with Royal Caribbean Cruise Line where he led the business through a period of strong growth. His extensive experience in the travel and leisure industry also includes senior roles at EasyJet, British Midland and British Airways.” Whitbread chairman Adam Crozier said: “We are delighted to welcome back Dominic to the group as our new chief executive. Following an extensive search and thorough evaluation of high-quality candidates we are confident Dominic's great track record of growing and transforming consumer brands in the UK and internationally will help to lead Whitbread in the next stage of the group's development. I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of the board and the Whitbread team to thank Alison for her leadership over the last seven years. She has guided the company brilliantly over that time: developing and then selling Costa for £3.9bn, growing and innovating our award-winning UK customer proposition, firmly establishing Germany to be a substantial engine of future growth, and latterly ably steering the group and leading our 35,000 colleagues through the pandemic. The strong recovery under Alison's leadership leaves Whitbread very well positioned as a strategic winner in the industry.” Paul added: “I am delighted to have been selected to return and lead Whitbread, a business with a fantastic heritage and an exciting future both in the UK and internationally. Whitbread has a well-founded strategy, a very strong customer proposition, and significant opportunities for future growth. I am looking forward to working with Adam and the whole Whitbread team to deliver for our customers, teams, and shareholders. It has been a privilege to be chief executive of Domino's, a company with a powerful brand, brilliant team and superb franchisees. Returning to Whitbread as chief executive is the only job I would have left for at this stage, and in the meantime, I'm looking forward to working closely with everyone at Domino's over the next six months to ensure a smooth transition. I'd like to thank [chairman] Matt [Shattock], the board and all Domino's franchisees and colleagues for the incredible support they have given me, and wish the business every success for the future.” Brittain said: “It has been an enormous privilege to lead Whitbread during a period of significant expansion for our well-loved brands, in both the UK and in Germany. The business has recovered from the pandemic well ahead of expectations and is continuing to trade strongly and gain market share. We are well positioned for continued outperformance and future growth, and we have a clear strategy and a strong management team to deliver it. For the last seven years I have been consistently impressed and humbled by the hard work and commitment of our very talented teams and their passion for providing brilliant experiences for our guests every day and I'm immensely grateful to them for everything that they do. I will continue to be fully committed to the business over the next few months until it's time to hand over the baton and I wish Dominic and the whole Whitbread team every success for the future.” Domino’s stated: “Since joining the Domino's board in May 2020, Dominic has overseen a resolution of the longstanding dispute with franchisees and navigated the challenges of the covid-19 pandemic. He has built a strong leadership team, delivered a robust financial performance and put in place a clear strategy for future growth. He will work his six months' contractual notice and leave in December 2022. The board is now initiating a process to identify his successor and will provide an update in due course. Domino's will report its interim results on 2 August 2022 and we continue to expect FY22 underlying Ebitda and earnings per share to be in line with current market expectations.” Shattock said: “Dominic has been an outstanding chief executive of Domino's, and overseen the transformational resolution with our world-class franchisees which has given the business a strong platform for future growth. He leaves with our thanks for his contribution to the company over the past two years. The business has a clear strategy and an excellent team, and I'm confident that with our franchisee partners, we can execute on that strategy and deliver great value, great service and great pizza to our customers in these uncertain times.”