Naked Wines appoints new CEO

UK boss of Naked Wines, Rodrigo Maza, has been appointed as the group's new CEO.

In September 2023, Rodrigo Maza was hired to become managing director of Naked’s UK business. Then in November 2023, Nick Devlin left the role as CEO with founder Rowan Gormley returning to the role as CEO. This week Rodrigo Maza was appointed the new CEO designate working with Rowan to cut the business costs. He will then become the CEO permanently later in the year.

The troubled business, with 3rd quarter sales down 10% year on year, has been cutting costs, shaving £7m of costs, with an aim of £30m by the end of 2025.

The share price has been on a major rollercoaster ride since 2018, after five years of a stable range of between £2.70-4.70. During Covid the price rose to £8.79, but is now worth 0.66p per share.

Rowan has blamed the recent performance on Nick Devlin, making a statement in November 2023 My view is that this shortfall is largely to do with execution, which in turn is largely due to Nick Devlin splitting his time across both the role of CEO and US President.

But in January, Rowan said in its financial update: We have to recognise that we are a smaller company post-Covid and our cost base has to reflect this.