Philippe Schaillee named chief executive of Costa Coffee

Philippe Schaillee has been appointed as chief executive of Costa Coffee and will be starting his role from 10 April.

He will take over from Jill McDonald, who was chief executive of the London-based coffee company between November 2019 and July 2022.

Schaillee was previously executive vice president of the France-based Groupe SEB, a position he has held since April 2021, overseeing cookware brands such as WMF, All-Clad, Tefal and Rowenta.

Earlier in his career, he was president of the Professional Coffee Division at Jacob Douwe Egberts (JDE) and chief marketing officer of the Sara Lee Group's United States arm.

He said: "I have long admired Costa and appreciate the company's deep history and heritage. I am excited to join the great team at Costa and look forward to learning and growing the business with them."

Evguenia "Jeny" Stoichkova, president of global ventures for the Coca-Cola Company, said: "We look forward to working with Philippe to expand on the plans we have developed to grow Costa, both in its home country of England and beyond."

Costa Coffee was founded by Italian brothers Sergio and Bruno Costa in 1971 and now operates in over 3,900 coffee shops across the world, including more than 2,700 in the UK and Ireland.

The company was sold to Coca Cola for £3.9b in January 2019.