Betterware marketer Hillyer quits

Former marketing director at Britvic and Golden Wonder, Tony Hillyer, has left his job as Betterware marketing chief to become managing director at corporate clothing specialist Simon Jersey.

His departure from the mail order homeware company follows that of former Betterware chairman and chief executive Liam Kane, who left in January. Kane joined Betterware in June 2000, after quitting the troubled New Millennium Experience Company, where he was managing director and involved in the Dome launch.

Bridgepoint, the private-equity company that helped Betterware’s management team to buy the company in 1998, has brought back the homeware company’s former owner Andrew Cohen as non-executive chairman. Cohen, who has also taken a stake in Betterware, has appointed a former European boss of Avon, Ken Wolfe, as chief executive. Wolfe will take over marketing.

Hillyer has been recruited to replace Simon Jersey managing director Mavis Gradwell who will retire in May.

While at Britvic in the Nineties, Hillyer oversaw the launch of the “you’ve been Tango’d” campaign. Following a period working for Bass in new product development, he moved to Golden Wonder in 1994 as marketing director and then to Littlewoods Pools as commercial director.

Simon Jersey, which designs, manufactures and distributes work clothes, has an annual turnover of &£30m, with clients that include American Airlines, Hertz, Securicor and British Gas.