The specialist retailer of fresh cream cakes, Cake Box (CBOX ), said trading has continued strongly throughout the second half of the financial year, and as a result, the Board now expects its performance for the full year to 31 March 2022 to be in line with expectations.

Today, the company also unveiled a string of Board and executive management changes, including the stepping down of its Co-Founder and Chief Financial Officer, Pardip Dass.

After more than ten years at Cake Box, Pardip Dass will step down from his role in order to pursue other interests. As a result, David Forth will take over as Interim CFO from today.

Having qualified as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG Peat Marwick, David has over twenty years’ experience in senior finance roles across the consumer, retail and logistics industries.

Some of these roles include, most recently, Interim Finance Director at AB Sugar (2020), Deputy CFO of Eddie Stobart Logistics (2018-2020), Interim Transformation Finance Director at Wincanton plc (2017-2018) as well as Interim CFO at Airwair Dr Martens (2015-2016).

In November 2021, Cake Box announced that the Board was seeking to further bolster its Executive team. Following an extensive search process, the Board has now appointed Richard Zivkovic as Chief Operating Officer who will be joining Cake Box on 13 June 2022.

Richard is joining Cake Box from Island Poke, the ‘grab and go’ franchised food retailer, where he is COO. Prior to joining Island Poke in 2019, Richard was COO at Abokado (2015-2018) and the Regional Operations Director in London at Costa Coffee (2014-2015).

Following Richard’s appointment, Dr Jaswir Singh will move into the role of Commercial Director while Dr Singh will remain on the Board in his new role, the company told investors.

In addition, Cake Box has also announced the appointment of Chay Watkins as Marketing Director. Watkins has previously worked for several national consumer food, beverage and nutrition brands, including the British dairy product firm Dairy Crest and Samworth Brothers.

In August 2021, the Board appointed BDO as internal auditor to assist the company in strengthening its internal control framework. Today, the company says it continues to work through a plan of improvements based on the areas identified by the external auditors, the initial focus being on Inventory Management, with some changes already being progressed.

Neil Sachdev, Non-Executive Chairman of Cake Box, commented: “I would like to personally thank Pardip for his immense contribution over the last decade and the significant role he has played in the Cake Box growth story, including the Group’s IPO on AIM in 2018.”

Sachdev highlighted to investors: “We are delighted to welcome David, Richard and Chay to the Cake Box Family, and look forward to working with them as we continue to evolve, improve and further professionalise the business, bringing in the experience and capabilities to fulfil our growth ambitions and build on the strong trading in the second half to date.”

Pardip Dass added: “I am extremely proud of what we have achieved at Cake Box, from first beginning to franchise the business model, to listing the business on AIM. After a decade with the business, now is the right time to move on following an orderly handover to David.”

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