Kari brings a wealth of relevant food retail experience, including more than 20 years at Tesco where she most recently spent four years as chief executive of Tesco Ireland with responsibility for over 150 stores and more than 13,000 colleagues.
She will work with the UK leadership team to continue to accelerate growth and profit, build market leading food and beverage propositions, collaborate with clients and shape the sustainability agenda.
The current chief executive Richard Lewis will continue in a consultative capacity until the end of April whilst Kari completes her induction.
Patrick Coveney, chief executive of SSP Group, said: “We are delighted to welcome Kari to SSP. Her extensive knowledge and experience of both retail and food industries make her an ideal successor to Richard in the role, and I’m confident she will accelerate growth in our UK business by putting a clear focus on developing our customer offer and innovating our brands and concepts to cater for the changed world we now operate in.
“Kari joins at an exciting time for the Group as we continue to make strong progress in our recovery and deliver our growth strategy to further strengthen our market-leading positions in food travel markets globally.
“I would like to thank Richard for his invaluable contribution to the Group during his time in the role. Richard successfully led SSP UK, Ireland and the Netherlands through the Covid-19 pandemic, managing the needs of the business, our clients and customers through extremely challenging and volatile times and steering the business through the recovery. The board and I wish him the best in his future endeavours.”