Pentland Brands appoints new chief human resources officer

Pentland Brands, which includes sports, outdoor and lifestyle brands Speedo, Berghaus, Canterbury, Ellesse and Mitre, have named Belinda Deery as its new chief human resources officer.

Deery joins Pentland this month from the behavioural change consultancy KultraLab, where she served as chief insight and solutions officer for the past two years. Before that, Deery spent nine years at Clarks in the roles of HR director, global talent director and, latterly, chief people officer, and held HR leadership roles with New Look, House of Fraser and Debenhams.

In her new role as part of Pentland Brands executive team, Deery will lead the HR services, recruitment, reward, employee engagement and internal communications teams across the business and brands globally. She will focus on “creating a people-first organisation and a culture programme that will help Pentland Brands continue to grow as a pioneering and positive place for people to work".

Chirag Patel, chief executive officer at Pentland Brands, said in a statement: “Belinda has huge amount of industry and HR leadership experience and is an incredibly important addition to the Pentland family. Alongside her chief human resources officer and exec responsibilities, Belinda will lead the new culture programme that will help us to attract and retain the best talent.”

Commenting on her appointment, Deery added: “I’m delighted to be joining Pentland, with its fantastic portfolio of brands, and helping to build on its cultural strengths in creating a purposeful, progressive and positive workplace for our people.”