The Entertainer (the retail arm of Teal Group Holdings which is also the parent company of Early Learning Centre & Addo Play) has today announced a renewed strategic focus on international expansion and a corresponding change of responsibilities amongst its top team.
The Group, as a whole, is in a period of significant growth as all three brands benefit from the enlarged reach across the UK and Europe, enabled by their long-term partnership with Tesco and the continued success of their collaborations with M&S and Matalan.
While further UK growth remains a focus – and new commercial partnerships will be announced imminently – the senior team at The Entertainer is, for the first time since the pandemic, turning its attention to growing the company’s international presence beyond the current 200 franchise stores across 21 countries.
“The Entertainer is, for the first time since the pandemic, turning its attention to growing the company’s international presence beyond the current 200 franchise stores across 21 countries”
Alongside the continuation of franchise-based growth across both existing and new international territories, the company has significant plans to scale by replicating the concession model successfully deployed in the UK through Tesco, Matalan and M&S.
This focus on growth of the retail business will further enable and enhance the continued expansion of wholesale distribution for Early Learning Centre and Addo – already selling through 24,000 outlets worldwide.
To lead this exciting phase in Teal Group Holdings growth, a Group Executive Committee is being established to lead and manage the group as a single, integrated entity.
As part of these changes, Geoff Sheffield will become Commercial Director, International to lead all commercial aspects of the international retail strategy and its execution. Geoff’s knowledge of both The Entertainer business and the toy trade, as well as his many years of international commercial experience, will be invaluable in this critical role, helping drive rapid growth in the scale of the international franchise and concession business.
The new Group Executive role of Chief Product Officer is being introduced, bringing together the functions of Buying, Merchandising and Marketing to enable these teams to maximise the speed and effectiveness with which product ranges are deployed across formats and markets.
Brian Proctor will join The Entertainer on Monday 9 September to take up this role. Brian brings a wealth of retail buying and trading experience, most notably through various directorships of TJX Europe (TK Maxx).
Andrew Murphy OBE, Group Chief Executive Officer, TEAL Group Holdings, said:
“I’m delighted to welcome Brian to the team and looking forward to working closely with him and with Geoff to drive our strategy forward. This is an exciting new era for our business and our loved and trusted brands”.
While we will always proudly be ‘the local toy shop’ at heart, the Teal Group is now a multi-faceted, international toy business, offering a wide range of business-to-business services as well as direct-to-consumer propositions; as a designer, sourcer, developer, wholesaler, concessionaire and retailer of toys across multiple international markets.
Recognising this evolution and the scale of the new opportunities ahead of us, I’m delighted to have our new leadership structure and key people in place to propel our growth and cement our position as one of the world’s leading toy specialists.”
