New chairman for Avebury Taverns

David Williams, former chief executive of the Thresher Group, the UK's largest specialist drinks retailer, has been appointed chairman of the 750-strong pub company Avebury Taverns. His appointment follows the acquisition of the majority shareholding in Avebury Taverns earlier this year by venture capitalists Vision Capital. The new ownership introduced significant new funding to enable the company and its management to take advantage of the consolidation and change taking place in the UK pub market, and David Williams has been asked to steer the business through this next critical phase of its development. He joins Avebury Taverns after leading the significant turnaround in profitability at the private equity-owned Thresher Group. He has had a long career in leisure retailing, including being chairman of Slug and Lettuce. He was president of Burger King in Europe, and chief executive and senior vice-president of Pizza Hut. His early career was spent with Whitbread. He is an operating partner with the private-equity group Duke Street Capital, and a non-executive director of Mothercare. At Avebury Taverns, David Williams oversees a board comprising the company's four founding directors ­ retiring chairman Rodney Mann, who made the decision to stand down once the acquisition by Vision Capital was completed; managing director David Myers; finance director Gary Couch; and commercial director Ian Frost ­ as well as operations director Mike Flavin, who joined three years ago. David Williams said: "I'm excited to be back in the pub business, and to be working with what is clearly a strong and united team at Avebury Taverns.