A New Seat, Built to Report to the Top
Morrisons confirmed on September 24, 2026 that Dr. Mohsen Ghasempour would become its first Chief AI Officer, with the role taking effect October 1. The detail that distinguishes this appointment from many retail AI hires is the reporting line. Ghasempour reports directly to Chief Executive Officer Rami Baitieh rather than into an existing technology or data organization, which places AI strategy at the same altitude as the grocer's other top executive functions rather than treating it as a subset of IT. For a grocery chain that has spent recent years rebuilding its operations under private ownership, creating a brand-new CEO-level seat rather than folding AI responsibility into an existing title is itself a statement of intent.
Baitieh's own comment reinforced that positioning. He described Ghasempour as a recognized expert in the field and said the appointment shows Morrisons embracing the opportunities in data and AI at pace. For a UK grocery chain competing against rivals who have made their own AI investments public, a direct CEO reporting line for the AI function is a visible way to signal that the initiative has real executive backing rather than existing as a side project inside the technology department, and it puts Baitieh personally on record as the executive accountable for whatever Ghasempour delivers or fails to deliver.
The Executive Morrisons Poached
Ghasempour's background gives the hire specific credibility rather than generic AI enthusiasm. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Manchester and spent more than two years as Kingfisher plc's Group AI Director, where he founded and scaled the central AI function from the ground up across the European home improvement group's brands, including B&Q, Screwfix, Castorama and Brico Depot. Kingfisher promoted him to Chief AI Officer in March 2024, giving him formal ownership of AI strategy, execution and governance across that multi-brand retail portfolio before Morrisons recruited him away.
Earlier in his career he led machine learning and AI work at THG as Head of Machine Learning and AI and Technical Director, and held data science roles at Shop Direct and Inclusive Technology. He currently also serves as a Non-Executive Director at Hays Travel, giving him board-level exposure alongside his operating roles. In a LinkedIn post about the appointment, he said Morrisons is an iconic British business and that he feels humbled and honored to help build its AI capability. That progression, from hands-on data science roles through a function-building mandate at Kingfisher to a board-level AI title at Morrisons, is close to a textbook career path for the current retail AI leadership market.
A Mandate Wider Than Most AI Chief Roles
Ghasempour's brief at Morrisons spans data and AI strategy across customer growth, colleague empowerment, operational efficiency, manufacturing excellence and commercial excellence. That list matters because it extends well past the customer-facing recommendation engines and chatbots that dominate most retail AI announcements. Manufacturing excellence, in particular, points to Morrisons' position as one of the few UK grocers that still owns significant food production and processing operations, meaning AI investment here could touch factory floors as directly as it touches the company's app, giving Ghasempour a physical-operations mandate that most retail AI chiefs never get near.
He will oversee work across AI, data, insight and digital media as a combined function, which concentrates authority that might otherwise be split across separate data, insight and marketing technology teams. Centralizing that authority under one executive who reports to the CEO reduces the coordination friction that typically slows AI rollouts at large, multi-division retailers, though it also means Morrisons is betting heavily on one person's judgment across an unusually broad portfolio, a concentration of responsibility that will make his first year of hiring decisions almost as consequential as his strategy choices.
The Reporting Line as a Competitive Signal
Retail AI chief roles have proliferated over the past two years, but most still report into a CIO, CTO or chief digital officer rather than straight to the chief executive. Morrisons' choice to route Ghasempour directly to Baitieh puts it in a smaller group of retailers treating AI as a board-level strategic priority rather than a technology department initiative, and it follows a broader pattern of grocers and general retailers racing to demonstrate serious AI commitment as competitors publicize their own investments, each trying to signal to shareholders and suppliers that it is not falling behind on the single technology trend boards now ask about most.
For rival grocery chains and retailers watching this hire, the reporting line is arguably more significant than the hire itself. A Chief AI Officer who answers to a CIO can be slowed down by competing infrastructure priorities. One who answers directly to the CEO has a much clearer path to budget and cross-functional authority, and Morrisons appears to have designed the role specifically to avoid the bottlenecks that have stalled AI programs elsewhere in the sector, the same bottlenecks that have left many retail AI pilots stuck in proof-of-concept purgatory for years.
What This Means for Retail Technology Leaders
If you are building or defending an AI function inside a retailer, use Morrisons' org design as a benchmark in your own internal case for authority and reporting structure. A Chief AI Officer with a direct line to the CEO and a mandate spanning customer, colleague, operations, manufacturing and commercial functions has fewer internal obstacles than one buried inside IT governance, and that structural advantage will likely show up in how fast Morrisons can move from pilots to production, which is the metric your own board should be pressing you on as well.
More broadly, expect UK grocery and broader retail AI hiring to keep accelerating, and expect executives with Ghasempour's specific profile, deep technical credentials paired with experience building an AI function from zero inside a major retail group, to command premium offers. If your own AI leadership search has been treating this as an IT hire rather than an executive hire with CEO-level backing, Morrisons' structure is a useful argument for reconsidering that approach before your next search goes to market.
