Tim Mason

…was central to Tesco’s story of customer-focused success which spanned 30 years, starting in the early 80s. When Tim joined the business, it was described as a ‘scrappy upstart’, so it was his job, alongside a wider group of outward-looking and future-focused leaders, to professionalise Tesco. Under Sir Terry Leahy’s leadership, the customer-led breakthrough came in the ‘90s. Driven by a burning desire to get ahead of Sainsbury’s, there was a realisation that focusing on the end customer was how they could lead and grow. This was proven initially though a number of customer-first initiatives which were actioned in-store, under the banner of ‘every little helps’. The approach continued to gather pace with the launch of customer-needs-led store formats, own label at three price points and a great deal more, and culminated in the launch of Clubcard in 1995. As CMO, Tim had convinced the Tesco board that Clubcard would enable them to run the business better, turning their customer obsession into something that could be operationalised through the use of customer data. The results were better than anyone ever anticipated and now, nearly 30 years later, Clubcard is still at the heart of Tesco’s customer-first strategy.

In 2016, Tim joined the then UK-based but now global SaaS business, Eagle Eye as CEO. It continues the trajectory from Clubcard in helping retailers win by using data to serve customers in personalised ways, both on-and offline. The business helps them integrate the physical with the digital and they provide this capability for many of the world’s leading retailers. And you can read all about it, with the 2nd edition of Tim’s book, Omnichannel Retail: How to Build Winning Stores in a Digital World, published in September 2023.