Rose Foster has faced a tough few weeks. The chief executive of Monsoon has seen her retail chain come under fire for being overstocked in the run-up to the sale season.
In addition, the company’s founder and chairman, Peter Simon, has put noses out of joint in the City with his repeated proposal to buy out the minority shareholders of the business – many of them hedge funds – who own the remaining quarter of the firm.
But Foster has seen the chain, which also owns Accessorize, through a period of great success in recent years.
In early 2005, Monsoon’s range of Indian-inspired skirts, kaftans and dresses chimed perfectly with the fashion for layered, gypsy clothing, and the retailer maintained brisk sales on an otherwise depressed high street. So confident was the group, it bought up 47 new stores from retailer Etam.
However, sales began to fall off in the summer and this season’s more tailored fashions are not typical of the ethnic style of the retailer.
Foster cut her teeth in retail at Next where she started as a sales assistant and, after 21 years, left the group as retail sales director. After a spell at New Look, she joined Monsoon in 2001 as group managing director.
She briefly entertained the idea of taking the chief executive’s position at Littlewoods until she was offered the same title at Monsoon.
But the 45-year old, who has a house-husband to keep the home fires burning while she runs the retail empire, believes one of her professional strengths is being a woman.
She says: ‘Women are natural shoppers and this must make a difference as we understand the environment. Generally most women have a better eye for visual things, layouts, windows. Having said that, I learnt my skills from a man.’
And this week, she will face her male peers as the only female executive on the shortlist for the chief executive of the year award at the Quoted Company Awards, an event designed to highlight the achievements of businesses below the FTSE 350.
It remains to be seen whether her visual flair will bring her award success.
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