First Milk appoints new chief executive

First Milk has appointed Kate Allum as chief executive with effect from 1 May 2010.

She takes over from Peter Humphreys who resigned from the co-op last December.

First Milk’s chairman Bill Mustoe has been covering the chairman and chief executive roles during that period; he said the time was now right for him to concentrate on strategy and First Milk’s position in the marketplace.

“Therefore I will hand over chief executive responsibilities to Kate, who has demonstrated a clear ability to drive change in First Milk while motivating people to deliver challenging goals.

“Achieving sustained progress for First Milk involves putting in place a number of changes that will help us to increase the returns we can pay to members. This appointment is part of these changes.”

Mrs Allum joined First Milk from McDonald’s in March 2009, initially as group operations director before moving on to executive director for cheese.