Tim Mason seen as Sir Terry Leahy's key lieutenant
Tesco has invested £350m in its US venture Fresh & Easy
Much of the anger over Tesco directors' pay is directed at Tim Mason, the 52-year-old boss of the grocer's underperforming Fresh & Easy chain in California.
Mason, a triathlete, skier and a surfer since he moved to Los Angeles, is the second highest-paid Tesco director after chief executive Sir Terry Leahy. Last year he picked up £7m in pay and free or cheap shares, prompting allegations from a US investment group that Tesco had "shifted the goalposts in order to provide Mason with a pay package that no reasonable analysis of Fresh & Easy's performance could justify".
Educated at Stowe public school, Mason studied philosophy and literature at Warwick University before joining the Wall's sausage company in 1979. Three years later he joined Tesco and worked alongside Leahy in the marketing department.
The two – who together came up with the Every Little Helps slogan the grocer still uses – rose through the organisation together and Mason has long been viewed as Leahy's key lieutenant.
The US venture was bold: the plan was to build a business as big as Tesco in the UK. Mason was despatched to California to deliver it. But the recession, and mistakes with details like pack sizes suitable for US shoppers, has seen the roll-out plan dramatically scaled back.
Last year, Fresh & Easy launched a 98-cent range, $1 special offers and $6-off coupons to shoppers who spent more than $30 in a visit. Mason admitted that the research on which the chain was based might have been flawed. He had expected the Fresh & Easy concept to be embraced and he hadn't expected to have to go "down and dirty" on price.
Tesco has so far poured some £350m into the business. A spokesman said Mason's bonuses are based not on profits, but on indicators such as customer satisfaction and the look of the stores.
