Marks & Spencer has poached Morrisons’ Matt McLellan to be its new director of loyalty.
McLellan, currently group customer, data and marketing director for Morrisons, will join M&S in the new year.
He will report to M&S marketing director Sharry Cramond, in moves reported first by Retail Week.
McLellan is replacing Jade Sharpe, who left as head of loyalty last week to set up Sharpe Consulting, having led the recent transformation of M&S’s Sparks loyalty programme.
“I am excited to join M&S and for the opportunity to work with such an iconic and well-loved brand,” said McLellan. “I can’t wait to join the team and get started.”
McLellan has been with Morrisons for just over a year, having joined in 2025 from Asda, where he had been VP of customer planning and proposition since 2020.
Before joining Asda, he was customer propositions director at Tesco for two years. Before that, he held a number of senior positions over more than a decade at customer data company Dunnhumby – fully owned by Tesco since 2010 – including UK & Ireland MD.
The Grocer understands the opportunity to take a role in the south of England, where McLellan lives, is a factor in his decision to leave Bradford-based Morrisons.
A Morrisons spokesperson said: “Matt McLellan, group customer, data, media & marketing director, has decided to leave Morrisons for family reasons.
“We thank him for his significant contribution to the business and he leaves with our best wishes.”
Morrisons value, loyalty and customer planning director Alex Paver has been promoted to lead the customer and marketing teams as McLellan’s replacement.
McLellan initially joined Morrisons in the newly created role of group data and media manager, reporting to CEO Rami Baitiéh.
Working closely with Morrisons trading director Andrew Staniland, McLellan played a key role in developing Morrisons’ More Card and its wider customer strategy over the past year.
It has undergone an expansion of physical couponing in order to attract more shoppers from outside of the More Card app, as well as a dialling back of direct loyalty prices in favour of increasing the level of general promotions across the shop floor.
It is the latest change to Morrisons’ senior ranks in less than a month, following the appointment of Maz Ahmed as convenience and wholesale director in July. He replaced Matt Heslop, who stepped down in February.
Commenting on Linkedin, Sharpe said: “Leading the transformation of Sparks has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my career. Seeing millions of customers embrace the new Sparks made all the hard work worthwhile.”
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