Co-op names ex-Holland & Barrett international chief as new managing director of retail. By Rory Bathgate 02/10/2026 Co-op has announced the appointment of Alex Dower as the new managing director of its retail business unit. Dower joins from the management consulting firm Bain & Company, where he has worked as a senior external advisor since May. He has a range of experience in retail leadership, having spent over two years as the chief executive for Holland & Barrett International, overseeing the wellness retailer's 16 omni-channel markets and reporting directly to the chairman. Prior to this, he was group chief commercial officer at Holland & Barrett. Dower also spent time as director of foods and restaurants at Harrods, chief executive at the Sydney-based bakery business Sonoma Baking Company and chief commercial officer at Woolworths Supermarkets. Other retailers Dower has worked at include Pret A Manger, Tesco, PepsiCo and Mars. Kate Allum, interim group chief executive at Co-op, said: "Alex brings a wealth of experience and a passion for building successful customer-focused businesses, in ways that make a meaningful difference to customers' everyday lives. "His personal values and leadership approach are fully aligned with our Co-op and I'm excited about the impact he will have in driving our Food Retail business forwards." Co-op said Dower's initial focus will be to support innovation across its stores, accelerate Co-op Food growth and deliver value to its customers. The supermarket chain cited Dower's experience as CCO at Woolworths, in which he overhauled its food offerings and improved its growth, as a track record he can continue at Co-op. In June, Co-op reshuffled its food leadership teams in the wake of the departure of its group managing director Matt Hood, commercial director for strategy and supplier relationships Tom Bradley and commercial director for fresh and chilled Nicole Tallant. As part of the change, it appointed Imran Rasul as its first chief commercial officer.

In Africa, changing the crops without changing the system is not good enough. Africa Sep 29, 2026 In Africa, Changing the Crops Without Changing the System Is Not Good Enough Who will control the seeds, science and markets behind the new interest in Africa's indigenous crops? A woman spreads millet grain for sale in a basket in Mao, capital of the Kanem region of Chad, on April 17, 2012. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) Related Letter from Des Moines: Cary Fowler, the World Food Prize and the Ghost of Norman Borlaug Millet, sorghum, fonio, Bambara groundnut, cowpea, amaranth, pigeon pea, taro. For decades these crops were treated as the food of the past. Research money, extension, subsidies, and markets went to maize, wheat, and rice. Yet African farmers, most of them women, kept planting the traditional crops, saving the seed, sharing it with neighbors and cooking with them. They did it with very little help. Now, suddenly, the same crops are fashionable. Climate change, poor diets and tired soils have pushed them into conference halls and donor strategies. I welcome that. But I keep coming back to one question: Who gets to decide what happens to them next? The question hit me again at a side event on African adapted crops during the Africa Food Systems Forum, hosted by the Africa Adaptation Crops Initiative, the Food Action Alliance, AGRA (formerly the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa), TechnoServe and Bain & Co. I went in encouraged. Before long, the discussion had slipped into a familiar script: raise productivity, formalize seed, mechanize, attract private investment, link farmers to big buyers. I am not against research, processing or markets. My worry is what happens when crops that African communities developed and protected over generations are treated first as business opportunities. Truthdig could change the crop and leave the system exactly as it was. The same worry applies to the Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils, known as VACS. It was launched by the U.S. State Department with the African Union and Food and Agriculture Organization to promote diverse, nutritious, climate-adapted crops grown in healthy soils. On paper, it takes neglected crops seriously and brings soil back into the conversation. Both are long overdue. So the issue is not whether to invest, but what kind of investment, and controlled by whom. Look at who was in the room when VACS was designed. Early research profiling possible "opportunity crops" was backed by the Rockefeller Foundation, and in December 2023, Washington announced $150 million in support for that year. African farmer organizations were not consulted while the program was being planned. The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa, whose members have campaigned for years to promote nutritious local crops, was never approached. When the journalist Alexander Zaitchik asked me about it, I had to tell him that nobody from VACS' leadership or affiliate groups had ever reached out to Truthdig or its networks. Who was at the table instead? Zaitchik's reporting for Truthdig, from the World Food Prize's Borlaug Dialogue in Des Moines, Iowa, is revealing. Cargill, Bayer, Syngenta, and John Deere are listed as "VACS champions," alongside the Rockefeller and Gates foundations. The World Food Prize Foundation, where VACS was showcased, is chaired by a former president of Corteva, the seed giant formed from the Dow and DuPont merger. Cary Fowler, the U.S. special envoy who championed VACS, has told audiences that "the answers to the world's food insecurity issues may lie in for-profit companies." When the world's biggest grain, seed and agrochemical companies are champions of a program on Africa's seeds, and African farmers are not even asked, Truthdig is entitled to ask whose program it really is. Zaitchik's larger point is that VACS, for all its new language, carries the assumptions of the Green Revolution. The crops are different, but outside expertise is still placed above farmers' knowledge, and yields above food sovereignty. It was telling that at a 2023 VACS event, then Secretary of State Antony Blinken held up Norman Borlaug as the precedent. The pattern is familiar: Experts define the problem, breeders supply the technology, financiers bring the money, companies build the markets and farmers adopt and supply. And opportunity for whom? For the woman who has kept Bambara groundnut varieties alive? For the farmer selling millet at the weekly market? For a public breeder at an African university? Or for a seed company, a food multinational or investors looking for the next growth market? These interests are not the same. This is why seed is the heart of the matter. CGIAR, a global food security organization that is VACS' main research partner, reports breeding work on Bambara groundnut, finger millet, okra, sesame, taro, amaranth and pigeon pea, guided by market intelligence and so-called target product profiles. VACS officials say CGIAR treats its seeds as public goods. But what outside actors do with those seeds, including patenting them, is up to them. With seed companies among the champions, the risk is plain: Crops that farmers bred over centuries could become more valuable just as farmers lose control of them. As I told Zaitchik, no project involved in advancing punitive seed patent regimes has the interest of African farmers at heart. Seed governance, farmers' rights and benefit sharing must be settled before breeding programs are designed, not after. Farmers have been plant breeders for thousands of years, and diversity is Africa's real strength: hundreds of cereals, legumes, vegetables, fruits, roots and local varieties. Once donors and markets pick a short list of "opportunity crops," money and breeding capacity crowd around them. My concern is everything left off the list. Diversity is not inefficiency. It is its insurance. A farm with millet, cowpea, vegetables, fruit trees and a few animals may produce fewer tons of millet than a monoculture, but it will also provide more nutrition, fodder, healthier soil and a steadier income in a bad year. Judge only the millet yield and Truthdig will end up with higher-yielding indigenous crops on simpler, more fragile farms. Markets need the same care. A mother buying millet in a village market is demand. A school buying vegetables from nearby farms is demand. Public procurement by schools and hospitals could create reliable markets for these foods and keep money in local economies. Processors and exporters can take part, but policy should not be written backward from their specifications. So what would I ask of AGRA, VACS and the others? Start by talking to African farmer movements and give them a real say in governing research agendas, not a consultation after the decisions are made. Put public money into farmer-managed seed systems and participatory breeding. Commit clearly that seeds developed from African crops will not end up under corporate patents. Let the women who kept these crops alive sit where decisions are taken. And judge success by diets, biodiversity, soil health, incomes and farmers' control over seed, not only by tons and dollars. The world has discovered that crops African farmers refused to abandon may matter for everyone's climate future. But they were never lost. They were being planted, selected, exchanged, cooked and protected all along. The people who did that work must not now become raw-material suppliers for someone else's revolution. Africa's crops do not need rescuing from African farmers. They need investment that puts those farmers at the center of what comes next. Rooted in Truth. Independent by Design. Your support helps ensure that rigorous reporting, thoughtful analysis, and investigative journalism remain accessible to everyone. Support independent journalism. SUPPORT TRUTHDIG In this Article: #Africa Food Systems Forum#borlaug dialogue#cary fowler#Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils#world food prize

Priyanka Nayak takes on enterprise talent mandate at HDFC ERGO. The former Bain & Company HR leader will oversee talent strategy, employer brand and internal communications at the general insurer By HRK News Bureau September 28, 2026 2 Mins Read 453 Views vPriyanka Nayak has moved from Bain & Company to HDFC ERGO General Insurance as vice president-HR, talent strategy & employer brand, taking on a broader enterprise talent mandate after more than four years with the consulting firm. Based in Mumbai, Nayak will drive HDFC ERGO's talent strategy, employer branding and internal communications, with a focus on strengthening the organisation's employee proposition and culture. At Bain, where she was senior manager-HR, Nayak led learning and talent initiatives for the firm's India offices, working across consulting and business-support teams. She joined the firm in January 2022 and remained there until June 2026. The HDFC ERGO role broadens that remit. Rather than concentrating primarily on learning and talent within a consulting environment, she will now work across talent strategy, employer positioning and employee communication at an enterprise level. Before Bain, Nayak spent two-and-a-half years with Nium, where she managed employee experience and learning across teams and geographies. Learning and capability building have been a recurring thread through much of her career. At Boston Consulting Group, she spent more than two years managing leadership and learning initiatives for the firm's consulting teams in India. Earlier, during more than four years at Capgemini, Nayak worked in learning and development, partnering with business leaders on learning strategy and capability building. She began her HR career at XL Dynamics India in a generalist role covering HR operations and employee lifecycle processes, after an earlier stint in client relations at Info Edge India. Across those moves, Nayak's remit has steadily widened from HR operations to learning, employee experience and talent. At HDFC ERGO, that progression now extends into enterprise talent strategy and employer brand. Nayak holds a Master of Human Resource Development and Management from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS) and a Bachelor of Commerce from SIES, Sion.