The Preyash Thakrar SSP Group appointment takes effect this month, with Thakrar succeeding Mark Rainbow as Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer after more than 20 years with the travel food and beverage operator, and CEO Patrick Coveney calling him “a huge asset” to the group’s next growth phase. Moodie Davitt Report broke the appointment on 2 September 2026.
SSP Group is one of the largest food and beverage concessionaires operating inside airport terminals worldwide, running units under brands including Upper Crust and Caviar House at hubs across Europe, North America and Asia, a concession model that competes directly with duty free operators such as the one behind Hyundai Duty Free’s Incheon Airport profit jump. Thakrar takes up the role this month, working alongside SSP’s Executive Committee and taking direct responsibility for global brand relationships and shared service operations.
For airport commercial directors, the change matters because SSP’s investment priorities shape what gets built, refreshed or dropped in terminal concession space. Thakrar’s brief, as set out by SSP, includes directing capital toward “the highest-returning channels and markets”, building technology capability, and finding further operational efficiencies. That is the language of portfolio pruning as much as expansion, and airports with underperforming SSP units should expect scrutiny rather than automatic renewal, a scrutiny that lounge operators like the one behind Menzies Pearl Lounge’s Hurghada expansion have so far avoided by scaling steadily.
Thakrar arrives with more than 20 years across strategy, transformation and growth in consumer-facing businesses, most recently as Chief Transformation Officer at Boots. He has also held senior roles at KPMG, Royal Mail, Asda and Walmart, including leading Asda’s work on its proposed merger with Sainsbury’s and shaping Walmart’s international portfolio strategy in Canada. He began his career in investment banking, spending ten years advising on retail M&A, including two years in Japan working with Walmart as a client.
He succeeds Mark Rainbow, who retires after more than 20 years at SSP, most recently as Group Director of Strategy and Business Services. Coveney credited Rainbow with helping refine SSP’s strategic focus and progress against its “Focus 26” plan. Thakrar, for his part, described SSP as “uniquely positioned as the world’s leading food travel experts” and pointed to the combination of specialist F&B expertise with global scale and local execution.
The reshuffle lands as airports increasingly benchmark concessionaire performance against passenger spend per head rather than headline footfall, a shift covered in our look at non-aeronautical revenue benchmarks. It also sits alongside a wider pattern of concession renewals and expansions, from Gebr. Heinemann’s extended Berlin Brandenburg deal to the broader competitive landscape mapped in our comparison of airport travel retail concession operators. Airports weighing their own commercial mix should also see how F&B and retail concessions fit the wider revenue picture in how airports make money.
The practical takeaway: commercial directors with SSP concessions up for renewal or review in the next 12 to 18 months should expect tighter return thresholds and a harder look at technology-enabled efficiency, and should get ahead of that conversation rather than wait for it.
Image: moodiedavittreport.com
