Alan Stewart arrived at Tesco when it was in the depths of an accounting scandal, in 2014. The new CFO joined straight from M&S (with a garden leave waiver), when Tesco was going through one of the biggest crises in its 101-year history.

In 2015 the company recorded an annual loss of £6.4 billion – that’s one of the largest in UK corporate history. Stewart led the corporate restructuring, rebuilt the balance sheet, and guided Tesco “back to investment grade”. He did this by refocusing the business on its core domestic market. Now move forward to October 2019, and Tesco unveiled a core profit of £3 billion, the turnaround was complete.

In June he announced he was retiring and would leave the company on 230 April 2021. Group CEO David Lewis, said: “Alan has been an outstanding leader and partner at Tesco., He has made a huge contribution and on behalf of all of Tesco colleagues I would like to thank him for all he has done.”

Stewart is well paid for his work. Last year he was paid £3.6 million, which was up of the previous year’s take home pay of £2.7 million.