M&S has promoted social media expert Charlotte Tonry to head of social media at the huge-and-growing high street retailer.

Her third promotion since arriving at M&S in April 2017, Tonry joined from former Marie Claire publisher Time Inc as assistant social media manager.

During the period, she worked on large-scale campaigns across its clothing and home division, as well as leading its paid influencer strategy. She then became social media manager for clothing and home in 2021 and then promoted again to social media lead in 2022.

Her latest promotion comes as M&S continues to transform its image with younger women again perceiving the high street retailer as the place to shop for fashion, significantly, boosted by the introduction of its ‘Brands at M&S’ initiative.

M&S has been seeking to win over more 35-50-year-olds with a focus on fashion clothing.

The retailer’s wider creative agency of choice, Mother, was appointed to “help M&S evolve and drive style perceptions by continually improving the visual aesthetic of communications whilst building customer-centric thinking into all marketing”.

The directive has helped the business to a strong Christmas trading period as sales rose 5.6% to £4 billion in the 13 weeks to 28 December.

The retailer said its focus across clothing, beauty as well as food helped it to deliver its “busiest ever peak”.