Whitbread has hired Nicholas Cadbury as its new group finance director.

The firm, which owns the Costa Coffee business, announced yesterday (4 September) that Cadbury will take over the role from Christopher Rogers, who has recently been appointed managing director of the coffee shop brand.

Cadbury is currently the chief financial officer at Premier Farnell, a Leeds-based electronic products supplier. Whitbread said he will become a member of the Whitbread PLC board and will join the company on a date to be announced in due course.

Andy Harrison, chief executive of Whitbread, said: “We are delighted with this appointment, having conducted a thorough international search. Nicholas has experience as finance director in two different multinational PLCs.  

“He brings a wealth of experience, which will be highly relevant to Whitbread as we continue to realise our ambitious plans for the business. Nicholas is an excellent addition to our team and we’re very pleased to have him on board.”

Cadbury said: “I feel privileged to be joining Whitbread and to be part of the management team at an exciting time in the company’s development as it seeks to strengthen its presence, both in the UK and overseas. I look forward to the opportunity of using my retail consumer background and international experience to help drive its ambitious growth agenda.”

The Whitbread Group is due to publish a trading update tomorrow (6 September).

Back in June, the company said its Costa Coffee business saw a 21.5% growth to £123.9m in UK retail system sales in its first-quarter financial results, in the 13 weeks to 31 May 2012.

During the same period, Costa increased total system sales by 24.7% to £226.7m and the brand’s UK equity stores delivered like-for-like sales of 8.4%.