Driving progress in our company and across the industry requires both passion and expertise. Get to know the leaders making it happen.

   

• Sebastian James, Managing Director

  

  Sebastian James is Senior Vice President, President and Managing Director of Boots UK & ROI. He leads all Boots’ businesses including Boots Opticians, both across the UK and the Republic of Ireland, with the support of Boots senior leaders. In December 2019, he won ‘Newcomer of the Year’ at the Beauty Inc. Awards.

  Before joining Boots in September 2018, Sebastian held the position of Group Chief Executive of Dixons Carphone from August 2014 to January 2018 following the merger of Dixons Retail Group with Carphone Warehouse. He joined Dixons in April 2008 and held various roles, including Group Operations Director, prior to his appointment as Group Chief Executive in February 2012.

  Before joining Dixons Retail, Sebastian was Chief Executive Officer of Synergy Insurance Services Limited. He started his career at The Boston Consulting Group.

  Sebastian is also a Non-Executive Director of Direct Line Insurance Group plc.

• Steve Ager, Chief Customer & Category Officer

  

  Steve joined Boots in June 2020 as Vice President Commercial Director, leading the Trading and Boots.com function across the UK and ROI. He subsequently took on leadership responsibility for marketing and retail own brand in November 2020. 

  Steve is a deeply experienced commercial and digital director with broad experience of commercial both in the UK and internationally. 

  Prior to Steve’s appointment he was Chief Commercial Officer & Director of Digital and a member of the Executive Committee for 12 years at Dixons Carphone.  During this time Steve headed up international sourcing leading the top to top supplier relationships across the group.

  Previously, Steve was Commercial Director at Tesco for 25 years, where he gained deep experience across commercial, international sourcing, digital general management and health and beauty. Steve also held roles as President of Tesco China and Managing Director of Global Sourcing.

• Paula Bobbett, Chief Digital Officer

  

  Paula was appointed to her current executive role in May 2022 and is responsible for continuing to deliver at scale and pace digital transformation and omnichannel strategy across Boots.

  Since joining Boots in December 2020, Paula has driven the end-to-end development of boots.com during a period of massive growth. She has been instrumental in strengthening online performance and positioning boots.com as the UK’s number one health and beauty website.

  Paula has a highly experienced background in online trading, commercial strategy and analytics, moving to Boots from her role as Head of Online Performance at Dixons Carphone and has held previous strategy and analytics roles at Avon, British Airways, Debenhams and Vanguard Strategy.

• Rich Corbridge (FBCS), Chief Information Officer

  

  Rich is responsible for delivering technology across the whole of the Boots estate in the UK and Ireland, stores, e-commerce, healthcare and supply chain.

  Helping to champion professionalisation of the IT industry in retail, Boots UK has become a member of The Chartered Institute for IT (BSC), the professional body for computing, under Rich’s leadership. The IT leadership team are now all Fellows of BCS.

  As an expert in digital health, Rich has held many senior information and digital technology roles in the industry, including executive positions at Leeds NHS Trust, the Irish Health Care system, the National Institute for Health Research and NHS Digital.

  Rich is the chair of the advisory board for health tech communication firm Silver Buck and the global advisory board of KLAS Research Organisation. Rich and was named in Marketing Week’s Top 50 CX Executives in the UK in 2022 and is listed in the top ten CIOs in the CIO100. Rich also holds the O’Moore medal, the highest accolade for informatics leaders in Ireland.

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