Alan Giles is Chairman of Fat Face

Fat Face

Fat Face is a chain of clothing retailers selling its own branded products. The company has over 190 stores in the United Kingdom, with international stores in Singapore, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Ireland, France, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar. The chain sells clothes aimed at men, women and...

, the active lifestyle retailer.

He was chief executive officer

Chief executive officer

A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...

 (CEO) of HMV Group, owner of record shop

Record shop

A record shop or record store is an outlet that sells recorded music. Although vinyl records and audio cassettes are no longer sold in the majority of music stores, in favour of compact discs and home video recordings products, people in some countries, like the UK, still use the term "record...

 HMV

HMV

His Master's Voice is a trademark in the music business, and for many years was the name of a large record label. The name was coined in 1899 as the title of a painting of the dog Nipper listening to a wind-up gramophone...

, which he joined in 1998, from March 1999 until September 2006.

HMV Group is also the owner of UK book chain specialist Waterstones, which bought another book chain Ottakars in 2006. HMV and Waterstones suffered a decline in sales in the financial year 2005-2006. Alan stated that the internet, including music downloading, and supermarket competition, contributed towards HMV's decline in sales.