BrewDog has appointed Allan Leighton as its new chairman as the Aberdeenshire brewer and retailer attempts to shake off its ‘toxic culture’ shackles..
An open letter from around 70 staff in June complained of a ‘culture of fear’ and a ‘toxic’ atmosphere at BrewDog and claimed a significant number of former staff suffered mental health problems as a result of working there. James Watt apologised at the time and started a series of reforms to address the criticism.
Allan Leighton replaces Blythe Jack, who was appointed as chair earlier this year and has been a BrewDog director since 2017 and she will remain on the board as deputy chair and will also continue to oversee the company’s culture review.
Leighton has worked as the chief executive of Asda and Pandora, and was the non-executive chairman of the Co-Operative Group, Royal Mail, Entertainment One, Element Materials Technology Group and Wagamama.
His appointment follows the final close of the latest Equity For Punks round, which raised £30.2m from nearly 74,000 investors, including more than 68,000 new investors, ahead of its Japanese expansion and potential stock market float.
