Costa Coffee appoints Royal Caribbean director Dominic Paul as new boss

Whitbread has appointed Dominic Paul as the new managing director of Costa Coffee, its subsidiary, which is the largest coffee chain in the UK. Paul who joins from cruise operator, Royal Caribbean International, will replace Chris Rogers who took on the role of managing director of Costa in 2012.

The appointment of Paul, who has been credited with helping the cruise operator grow outside the US, particularly in Asia Pacific and China, comes at a time when the coffee chain is expanding in China. He is expected to bring his expertise to Costa and help with its global expansion plans.

"Costa is a fantastic business with a huge amount of further potential — both in the UK and overseas — and I am extremely excited to be working with the team to take the business to the next level." Paul said.

The move comes following Rogers deciding to leave the company. While he will leave Costa on 1 July, he will step down from Whitbread's board on 20 April.

Prior to his four-year tenure as the boss of Costa Coffee, he served as the finance director of the FTSE 100 listed Whitbread. Roger's decision to step down also comes after Whitbread appointed Alison Brittain, previously of Lloyds Banking Group, as its CEO in 2015 after its former chief executive Andy Harrison announced his departure. Many analysts had opined at that time that the role would be given to Rogers.

Richard Baker, chairman of Whitbread, said: "Chris has made an immense contribution to Whitbread over the last 11 years. He joined Whitbread as Finance Director in 2005 and played a leading role in the transformation of the Group to a more focused and profitable business. He then took the helm at Costa in 2012 and under his leadership Costa has grown rapidly from under 2,500 stores to over 3,200 today and is firmly established as the UK's favourite coffee shop chain."