Tue 30th Jan 2018 - Bill’s appoints Duncan Garrood as chief executive as Mark Fox steps down Bill’s appoints Duncan Garrood as chief executive as Mark Fox steps down: Bill’s Restaurants, owned by Richard Caring, has appointed Duncan Garrood as its new chief executive with immediate effect to lead the company as it enters a new phase of development and expansion across the country. Garrood has a wealth of experience in the hospitality and restaurant industry. Prior to joining Bill’s, he led the successful turnaround of Punch as its chief executive and before that he ran a wide portfolio of restaurant and hospitality brands across the Middle East and Europe. He will lead the national expansion of the all-day dining restaurant chain, which it said on the back of a strong fiscal 2016-17 is currently showing good returns on both its new and recently refurbished estate, in a challenging market place. Garrood said: “I’m delighted and honoured to join the team at Bill’s. They have built a superb restaurant business and my focus will be to enable Bill’s to continue to excite our customers and to grow. This is a really exciting time to be joining one of the country’s best-loved restaurant businesses. We have some exciting and ambitious growth plans for more sites across the country that will serve the great food and drinks that our millions of customers have come to expect from us.” He will replace Mark Fox, who is leaving due to personal reasons. A spokesman for Bill’s said: “We are delighted Duncan is joining us. He will lead a great team in expanding Bill’s across the country. Mark Fox has decided to step down as chief executive with immediate effect due to personal reasons. We’d like to thank Mark for his contribution to developing Bill’s and wish him every happiness and success.” There is substantial investment planned for the chain, including introducing a significantly evolved concept at several new sites with menus that offer daily changing specials. The first of the three new restaurants opens in St Albans this week, closely followed by two in London. They will offer seated bar areas where menus of new dips and snacks will be available.