Hayward currently runs his own agency, Hayward Strategy and Futures, providing strategic marketing and insights advice to the retail, financial services, telecoms, media and consumer goods industries.

“After a sustained period of debt-fuelled expenditure, where even average retail offers were able to post good year-on-year results, the difference between those who really understand the consumer and those who don’t will become ever more apparent, and I look forward to working with the Retail Think Tank to help the industry decipher where the real opportunities and threats lie for the future,” he said.

He was director of strategy and futures for Dunnhumby between 2004 and 2010. Before that, Hayward spent six years as executive chairman of WPP strategic marketing consultancy The Henley Centre and three years as the founding MD of BBH Futures, the strategic consultancy arm of the Bartle Bogle Hegarty Advertising Group.

Tim Denison, head of retail intelligence at Ipsos Retail Performance and co-founder of the Retail Think Tank, says: “His knowledge, experience and foresight of UK consumer behaviour will be very valuable to us as well as those who follow the work of the RTT.”