Enterprise Inns commercial director Ed Cottrell quits

Cottrell, who joined the tenanted pub operator in April 2012 after 10 years at Diageo, is seeking a role within the drinks industry closer to his home in the South East.

His duties at Enterprise, which include sales and marketing support, will be taken over by new group commercial director Paul Harbottle.

Cottrell told the Publican’s Morning Advertiser: “I came from a consumer brands business, and that’s what I’ll be looking for again. It’s been a difficult decision to leave, because we’re all so wedded to this industry, but it’s all been super-amicable with Enterprise.

“I feel that we’ve made great headway in the business, which is in a period of transition, and I’ll be running through lots of commitments in the coming weeks before my departure on 5 January.”

Cottrell told delegates at this year’s Tenanted Pub Summit that Enterprise Inns was undergoing a “cultural change” in the way it treats its tenants.

He acknowledged the company’s “very low” tenant satisfaction scores and said Enterprise was improving but still had “a long, long way to go”.

Publican survey​

Cottrell oversaw Enterprise’s first publican’s survey in 2013. “It was a harsh survey, there were strong comments,” he said. “But it was a good thing to start and a good thing to build on.”

The survey highlighted some areas where publicans are broadly happy - such as Enterprise’s food offer and support, regional managers that are “trusted and listened to”, and its training programme. However, tenants indicated that improvements were needed in areas such as frequency of regional manager visits, digital support, communication and property issues.

Cottrell said: “It will mean a changing culture and that has to be started with listening. Once we listen we have to respond. Once we’ve responded we have to plan and we have to execute, and we’ll be measured on our execution. When we’ve finished executing, we listen again.”