John Derkach

John Derkach (born 3 December 1956) is a British hospitality businessman, who oversaw the expansion of Costa Coffee.
Early life
He attended Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Penrith. He studied History at Downing College, Cambridge.
Career
P&G
He joined P&G in 1978 as a graduate trainee.
Playtex UK
He joined Playtex UK in 1983.
Pepsi
He worked in the UK division of PepsiCo from 1985, becoming marketing director for Northern Europe, moving to the Spain and Portugal division as its marketing director, living in Madrid for four years.
Whitbread Beer Company
From 1994 he was the marketing director for the Whitbread Beer Company (now owned by AB InBev), being responsible for Stella Artois, Heineken, Labatt, and Boddingtons. The marketing slogan for Heineken in the UK for twenty four years was Heineken refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach, developed by Collett Dickenson Pearce in 1974, which he changed to How refreshing, how Heineken.
Beefeater
From 27 October 1998, he became managing director of Beefeater, replacing Simon Wood, who had been at Beefeater since 1993. Beefeater had 253 restaurants in the UK, having sold 40 restaurants in May 1998 to Crowded House Pub Company.
Pizza Hut
He became chief executive of Pizza Hut UK on 8 August 2002, replacing Mark Jones.
Costa Coffee
He became managing director of Costa Coffee in June 2006. Costa Coffee opened their first store in 1978.
By December 2009, Costa Coffee had 1,030 stores in the UK, and 429 stores overseas. Costa Coffee sold two cups of coffee every second.
He appeared on the BBC Radio 5 Live programme On The Money on Sunday 3 October 2010.
He resigned from Costa Coffee in April 2012. Under his leadership, Costa Coffee had four times as many stores, with around 2,200 in April 2012, becoming the largest coffee chain in the UK.
Tragus Group
He became chief executive of Tragus Group in 2012, replacing Graham Turner who had been at Tragus for seven years, under chairman Charles Gurassa. Tragus Group had around 7,300 staff and around 300 restaurants, including the Bella Italia chain.
Tragus became The Big Table Group.

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