Boots UK appoints commercial director, suffers cyber attack

By

Barbara Santamaria

Published
Mar 6, 2020

Health and beauty retail chain Boots has announced the appointment of Steve Ager as vice-president and commercial director for the UK and Ireland.

Ager, who was most recently group commercial officer at Dixons Carphone, will join Boots at the end of June, reporting into Seb James, regional managing director of the business, and Annie Murphy, senior vice-president and chief commercial officer of parent firm Walgreens Boots Alliance.

Prior to Dixons Carphone, Ager held roles at Tesco and Keymarkets. Commenting on the appointment, Seb James said: “Steve has a wealth of experience and a deep understanding of the UK and global retail industry.”

The hire came just a day before the beauty retailer was forced to suspend its Advantage Card payments following a cyber attack.

Around 140,000 customers are thought to be affected, although Boots said this represents less than 1% of its online users.

The suspension means customers are temporarily prevented from paying for products using loyalty points.

The company said the data, including customer passwords, was not obtained directly from Boots, and suggested scammers attempted to break into customer accounts using passwords stolen from other websites.

“As an extra precaution we have temporarily stopped payment by Boots Advantage Card points on boots.com or in store. This removes the ability for people to attempt to access any Boots accounts, but means that customers will not be able to use Boots Advantage card points to pay for products in-store and online for a short period of time,” the company said.