Sketchlyey drops Fagan as its md

Dry-cleaning chain Sketchley is reshuffling senior management responsibilities after dropping its managing director Elizabeth Fagan.

Fagan was asked to leave the company last month. Sketchley says it chose not to announce the decision because she was not a board member. Fagan’s role will be taken over by John Jackson, former Body Shop managing director, who arrived as Sketchley’s chief executive last October.

Sketchley is billing the move as a mutual decision, saying that Fagan lacked the skills needed for Sketchley’s next business move. The company is launching a series of services over the next year, including a pick-up service called Fetchley From Sketchley. It is also opening a number of stores combining its Sketchley dry-cleaning and SupaSnaps photoprocessing business.

Although Fagan has successfully overseen the integration of Sketchley and SupaSnaps during the past year – delivering pre-tax profits up 25.8 per cent to 6.4m – Sketchley believes Jackson is more suited to a period of expansion.

“Fagan did a super job, but this second phase is less defensive and more offensive,” says Sketchley’s finance director Richard Meyers.

“She felt relatively happy to go,” he adds.

Fagan, who has been with Sketchley since November 1993, is on holiday and could not be contacted.