Vladimir Sorokin resigned from the post of general director of the supermarket chain Perekrestok at his own request, the owner of the network, the largest Russian retailer X5 Retail Group, said.

Supervising the supermarkets of the group will now be Vladislav Kurbatov, the operating director of this format, X5 reported.

A sequence of conversions

For X5, this is another notable resignation of the top manager. The general director of the group's main format, Pyaterochka, Olga Naumova left X5 in May because of disagreements about the development of shops near the house and the principles of management. Following it, the regional director and the HR director left. All of them went to work at Magnit, and Naumova became its CEO on June 22. At the same time, X5 announced the appointment of Pyaterochka CEO: he was Sergey Goncharov, who was responsible for pharmacy and cosmetics at Magnit.

"Crossroads" - the second after "Pyaterochka" in size and turnover network in the group X5. At the end of March 2018, she had 674 supermarkets, mainly in the Central Federal District. Their revenue for 2017 is 187 billion rubles. (14.5% of group sales). Now the supermarket chain is undergoing a major upgrade: at the beginning of the year 73% of Perekrestkov worked in an updated concept, according to the annual report of X5.

Transformer "Crossroads"

Sorokin led the "Crossroads" in the autumn of 2014, and before that, from 2013, he was the director for category management of Pyaterochka. In 2014, announcing the appointment of Sorokin, the retailer stressed: "He was one of the key members of the transformation team responsible for strategic transformation and the creation of the new operating model X5, as well as for the development of the concept" New Pyaterochka "launched in October 2013.

Sorokin did a great job at Perekrestok, comparable to the one Naumova completed in Pyaterochka by mid-2017, said Mikhail Burmistrov, general director of Infoline Analytics.

Now Perekrestok is at a peak, notes Burmistrov: the business model has been seriously revised, competitiveness has improved, consumer perception has improved, the largest factory in Russia is preparing to be launched, and online sales continue to explode. "Some supermarkets still lag behind in efficiency from more successful points, but this problem can be solved, it is not super complicated," the expert adds.

The reasons for leaving

Sorokin had a proposal to become a commercial director of Magnit, Sorokin's acquaintance knows. At the same time, according to him, Sorokin was considered as one of the possible future successors to the chief executive director of the entire X5, Igor Shekhterman. "The main reason for the withdrawal was that his vision of the timing of the implementation of such plans did not coincide with the vision of the group's management," the Vedomosti source said.

The representative of X5 confirmed to Vedomosti: Sorokin was among the possible successors to the group's chief executive officer. "Preparing successors for key positions from among internal candidates is one of the important attitudes of shareholders for top managers of X5 and part of assessing the quality of their work," he added,

Probably Sorokin had expectations that Naumova's departure would open up opportunities and he could quickly take a leading position in X5, Burmistrov suggests. Previously, Sorokin was offered the position of commercial director of Magnit, he knows. Sorokin showed that he was interested in continuing to work in Naumova's team, and the X5 program, led by Shekhterman, could have seemed to Sorokin to be too slow to consistently and gradually prepare successors, which led to the decision to leave the company, Burmistrov argues.

On the other hand, Burmistrov continues, Magnit is now changing the management motivation system, linking it with the stock price of companies. "Unlike the X5, where high results have already been achieved, it can be easier to demonstrate significant improvements in Magnit and get the motivational component of the compensation package," he notes.

Press-service of "Magnit has not yet commented on Vedomosti's questions about Sorokin.

Who is the successor?

Kurbatov is a native of the St. Petersburg network of hypermarkets O'Key: he worked in it for more than 13 years and left in 2015 as the operational director of the network.

Replace Sorokin in the post of general director of "Crossroads" is not easier than Naumov - in "Pyaterochka", considers Burmistrov. But Kurbatov, in his opinion, is a win-win option: "He has good experience in" O'Key "including during the period when the network was the leader in consumer perception in Russia and this will allow Perekrestok not to lose the pace of updating the format and continue implementing the strategy. "