Melinda Smith
C-suite executive with a track record of success leading large team transformations across complex value chains in both the public and private sectors. Delivering great outcomes for diverse client bases.
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Masters director Melinda Smith resigns as D-Day looms
The co-architect of Woolworths' disastrous foray into home improvement, Masters director Melinda Smith, has resigned just months before the board is due to make a decision on its future.
Ms Smith, who is due to depart at the end of December, was chief operating officer of Masters from 2009 to 2012 and was promoted to director in July 2013 after Master's first managing director, Lowe's executive Don Stallings, returned to the US.
Ms Smith was responsible for the day to day operations of Masters before Woolworths hired UK hardware expert Matt Tyson to replace Mr Stallings in January 2014.
Former Masters Director Melinda Smith has been appointed to a Senior Executive Service job with the ATO. Dominic Lorimer
Ms Smith was forced to front investors in July 2013 and admit that Woolworths had made crucial mistakes in home improvement - overestimating sales and gross margins, underestimating labour costs and the impact of seasonality, and getting wrong parts of its product range.
"We didn't know a lot about this business when we set the budgets for 2013," Ms Smith said. "We didn't know much about seasonal curves, and we didn't have the right stock in some instances."
"Labour costs are different in Australia to the US," she said. "Christmas in the US is in the middle of winter, which is different to Australia."
Before joining Masters, Ms Smith worked for Woolworths for more than 24 years in a variety of roles at Safeway in Victoria and at general merchandise chain Big W.
"Whilst she was a clever lady, running a mature supermarket/liquor/BIG W business is one thing, it's different running a customer intensive startup," one source said.
Ms Smith is the second senior Masters executive to resign this week. Earlier this week Masters' marketing boss, Dion Workman, quit after just a year in the job and was replaced by Woolworths' general manager of corporate marketing, Luke Dunkerley.
A Woolworths spokeswoman said Mr Workman's departure did not signal any change in strategy and rejected suggestions it could be the start of a gradual wind down of the chain, which has racked up losses of more than $600 million over the past four years.
"We can't continue to lose $200 million a year - businesses are not in business to lose money," Mr Cairns said. "I'm open minded about the options."
Mr Cairns is under pressure from shareholders and analysts to pull the plug on Masters, which is considered to be unsaleable as a going concern.
Woolworths has tweaked store layouts and improved the product range in an attempt to boost sales per store and curb losses.
However, figures released last week by Woolworths' US joint venture partner Lowe's shows losses continued to mount in the October quarter.
Deutsche Bank estimated that the home improvement business lost $67.5 million in the first quarter after losing $57 million in the same quarter last year. Masters is forecast to lose almost $300 million this year after losing $245 million in 2015.
