Travis Perkins has appointed Frank Elkins as its new chief operating officer for the Group’s trade merchant businesses. These include Travis Perkins builders’ merchants, BSS, Benchmarx, Keyline and CCF, which combined generate more than £3.6 billion in annual revenue and have a branch network of more than 1,000 nationwide.
Frank reports into chief executive officer (CEO) John Carter, and has been appointed with immediate effect following the Group’s announcement that it plans to simplify and focus on trade customers, and is removing the company’s divisional structure to reduce complexity, speed up decision making and reduce costs.
Frank joined BSS Group in 2003 and rose from commercial director to managing director for BSS Industrial in 2005 and board director in 2009. Travis Perkins Group acquired the BSS Group in 2010 when Frank then joined. He was promoted to divisional CEO of the Group’s contract merchanting division in 2013, a post he held until his current appointment.
“Frank has been instrumental in laying the foundations for our new structure, and has a clear vision, the energy and commitment to developing our trade merchanting organisation. He has been in merchanting for over 30 years, eight of these with us. As divisional CEO for our contract merchanting division, when he was responsible for the leadership and strategy development of our Keyline, BSS and CCF businesses, he succeeded in growing sales and profits by nearly 50% over a five-year period. This is a fantastic track record!”, explained John.
Commenting on his appointment, Frank said: “We have a fantastic team of leaders at all levels, who have the passion and know how to ensure that our customer proposition is best in class. I want to make sure our branch managers and teams have everything they need to do their job well, so we can be the first choice for trade customers.
“In our industry, it’s all about relationships and service: strong and personal relationships between branches, customers, and our suppliers. We need to ensure that we continue to take away complexity and that our priorities across all functions are focused on delivering our vision of being the first choice for the trade.”
