Liquor Marketing Group (LMG) has announced the appointment of its new Chief Financial Officer, Jonathan Harrison.

Harrison (above) previously worked for Lion for nine years in several senior finance roles, most recently as Commercial Director for Business Development; and prior to that, serving as Head of Finance for Malt Shovel. Before Lion, he spent 10 years with PwC as a senior member of its Risk and Controls team.

Gavin Saunders, LMG CEO, said: “Jonathan Harrison joins our team with more than 19 years’ experience helping businesses tackle complex problems and designing strategies and solutions to drive sustainable growth. Jonny’s experience as a finance leader with strong commercial focus will be tremendously advantageous for LMG and I look forward to Jonny working with our Board and Executive team in accelerating growth in our business and delivering maximum value for our
members.”

With more than 1400 stores included under its retail brands – Bottlemart, SipnSave, Harry Brown, and Thirsty Camel in Western Australia – LMG reports it has experienced extraordinary growth over the past four years, with membership expanding more than +50% during this period.

“LMG’s investment in advertising, selling and member support has more than doubled over the past four years,” said Saunders. “This increase has created the opportunity and need for the addition of Jonny Harrison’s role as Chief Financial Officer. Jonny brings to the role vast experience in market pricing analysis, business development, systems and financial management which will support LMG to further drive our members’ sales and profit performance.

“Our sales growth of 32.6% over the past two years is testament to winning with customers and it is pleasing to give our independent members growth ahead of what has been reported by other major liquor retailers.”

In May, LMG revealed market-leading growth for the RTD category, with dollar sales up +40.2% over the 12 months to March 2021 compared to the previous year.