Guy Colleau is Maxeda DIY's new CEO

Dutch DIY chain Maxeda, which owns chains like Praxis, Formido, Brico and Plan-It, has confirmed the appointment of Frenchman Guy Colleau as its new CEO. He will start on 1 May.

28 years of experience

Colleau (52) has more than 28 years of experience as a leader in the retail world, particularly in the DIY business. He has a strong operational background in retail and has been a manager at several major French DIY chains, like Materiaux Service, Leroy Merlin and Castorama France. At the latter, he was CEO from 2003 until 2013, after which he took up several leading positions at Kingfisher Group, focusing on their international business.

Colleau will replace Roel van Neerbos, who became Maxeda CEO in January 2014 after leading positions at Procter & Gamble, Mattel and Heinz, where he was president Continental Europe and president global ketchup.

Strong competitive market

Jean-François Delepoulle, chairman of the board at Maxeda, said: “Maxeda DIY is a robust market leader in the DIY retail business, with 4 very consumer-focused formats (Praxis, Formido, Brico and Brico Plan-It). Over the past few years, we have strengthened our financial position, increased our company’s efficiency and improved synergies in the Benelux region. I want to thank Roel Van Neerbos for his effort and contribution to our company and our staff. We are in a very competitive retail market and want to strengthen our leadership position even further. With Guy Colleau and his vast experience at our helm as CEO, we are convinced we can achieve this.”

Maxeda DIY Group has been updating its formats and management for a while now. Only in May 2015, it appointed Erik Cuypers as its CIO.