Abbis leaves Sainsbury's to be Debenhams new marketing ops director

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Mar 4, 2020

Debenhams continues to face major challenges and is still to close nearly 30 of its stores, but the company is moving fast to make sure it gets its messaging right and has made a second senior hire in marketing. 

Andrea Abbis will become marketing operations director on March 9 and will be reporting directly to the new chief marketing officer Abigail Comber.

Abbis was previously head of marketing, trade planning and media at Sainsbury’s and has plenty of experience relevant to Debenhams, having worked on the marketing strategy for Argos, Tu Clothing and the supermarket giant’s Home brands.

It will be a big change after she’d spent 19 years at Argos, originally joining as buying manager and then becoming trading manager.

Her arrival will be another injection of new blood into the Debenhams marketing department after Comber arrived only in January. She joined in the New Year, taking over from Erin Brookes, who had been managing the marketing operation on an interim basis.

Comber also spent a long time at one company, having worked for British Airways for 24 years.

Debenhams’ most recent marketing campaign has seen the retailer working to educate men about jeans. Last month it launched a fit guide for Spring in partnership with style magazine GQ.