Pizza Express has appointed Inji Duducu as its chief people officer as of December.
Duducu will become a key member of the Pizza Express leadership team and be responsible for all aspects of the brand’s people agenda.
With more than 25 years’ experience in human resources roles in the banking, insurance, healthcare and retail industries, Duducu’s background includes strategic business partnering. She has expertise across several business functions, including commercial, learning and development, and diversity and inclusion.
Most recently, Duducu was group people director at Poundstretcher, where she was responsible for establishing new leadership, trading and finance teams as part of an acquisition process. Prior to this, she was people director at Morrisons, responsible for 12,000 team members, the integration of a convenience business, employee relations and reward.
Duducu said, “I’m thrilled to be joining the Pizza Express team. As someone with a people-first mindset, the opportunity to work with the thousands of PizzaExpress team members who are responsible for making this brand such an icon of the high street is an exciting prospect. This, combined with being an avid PizzaExpress fan, means I’m very much looking forward to joining the team.”
Paula MacKenzie, chief executive officer at Pizza Express, said, “Our culture, people and team is at the heart of what we do at PizzaExpress. So it is my absolute delight to welcome Inji as chief people officer to Pizza Express, and know that we are adding a huge asset with first class people talents into the leadership team. We can’t wait to have her on board.”
