Scottish Courage chief quits for top Fullers post

Scottish Courage has been hit by the departure of its director for new product development, John Roberts, who is leaving to become marketing director at regional brewer Fullers.

Roberts was appointed to the position at Scottish Courage, the beer division formed by Scottish & Newcastle’s takeover of Courage (MW November 3, 1995), just three months ago. He was appointed by marketing director John Nicolson when he announced his new-look marketing team.

Nicolson trod a careful line be-tween the Scottish & Newcastle and Courage marketing departments in making the appointments. But Roberts, who had been ales controller at Courage, in charge of John Smith’s Bitter among others, wanted the job of director for ales at the combined company. Instead this post went to Scottish &Newcastle’s brands director Brian Sharp, and Roberts was offered the post of director of strategic planning.

He says he was unwilling to move to Edinburgh and had been talking to London-based Fullers for some time about the new post. “Fullers gives me the role I wanted,” he says. “I’ll have a seat on the plc board and be in charge of sales and pricing policy. It will have a sizeable advertising budget.”

Roberts joined Courage 18 months ago from United Biscuits where he worked on the KP brand. Prior to that he worked at Britvic.