Philip Clarke (businessman)

Philip Clarke is a British businessman who spent his working life at Tesco and served as its chief executive officer until 1 September 2014. Born in Liverpool in 1960, he took his first job as a schoolboy at a Tesco store managed by his father, stacked shelves at a local store, graduated in economics from the University of Liverpool and joined the Tesco management training programme in 1981. He was appointed to the board of directors in 1998 and replaced Sir Terry Leahy as chief executive in 2011. His three years in charge saw the company's first profit warning in twenty years and an accounting scandal in 2014, and he left the board earlier than first announced. He also sits on the board of directors of the Consumer Goods Forum.