Morrisons boss reveals a wicked sense of humour as he opens up in an exclusive interview

You never know when this wicked sense of humour is about to emerge.

There is a rumour that Potts was so poor as a kid that he borrowed his granny's shoes to walk to school.

When I ask him about this, he deadpans: "I didn't borrow them. She was dead. She had no say in the matter.

"I had no shoes so I had to use her's, probably for over a year. Obviously I didn't enjoy that very much, but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, or whatever it is."

Having joined Tesco to work on the deli counter at the age of 16, did Potts ever imagine he'd be the CEO of a big four grocer?

"No, I didn't. If you're a 16 year old Manc (Mancunian) who's on the deli counter in Tesco, it's not the first thing that comes into your head," he deadpans once again.

Another comment that crops up frequently is that he never forgets anything. If you're thinking of skiving off at 7pm on a Friday night, he'll remind you about a task that he'd asked you to complete and you hoped he'd forgotten about.

Potts, a highly acclaimed Tesco veteran, was brought into Morrisons in 2015. It was not a happy time for the company. Former chief executive Sir Ken Morrison had not been a fan of the former CEO.

At one AGM in Bradford, Sir Ken told the former CEO: "I have something like 1,000 bullocks and, having listened to your presentation, you’ve got a lot more bulls**t than me."

Fortunately, Sir Ken and Potts had a much better relationship (Sir Ken also had a very dry sense of humour) and would regularly share a meal on Fridays in a Morrisons' cafe.

Potts says: “Having a fish and chip lunch with Sir Ken was a pleasure. I always used to drink tea with him because I couldn’t bring myself to tell him I wasn’t a tea drinker.

“During those conversations he always demonstrated his very keen eye and a great sense of humour. The business remained very close to his heart, but it was clear that his whole family was closer still.”

Potts has spent the past six years getting Morrisons back on track. Under his leadership, the grocer has also been at the forefront of battling the pandemic, helping out local communities, donating to food banks, providing discounts for key workers and helping housebound customers order their shopping by phone.

Then, just when he thought he could take a well earned holiday, Morrisons found itself in the middle of a £7bn bidding war between two private equity firms, Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) and Fortress.

CD&R won and Potts and his team have worked closely with the US firm to ensure that Morrisons will retain its unique position in British food service.

When asked whether he thinks the CD&R takeover will be a good thing for Morrisons, he says: "Some of us have been here a few years and when we could see what was happening during the summer, we started to work on a model for running the company and how we could work with them on their model.

"My gut feeling is they're very interested in the company, but they've just spent £7bn so they ought to be," he deadpans once again.

"I think they're going to be interested in, and interesting to talk to, about business problems that we have from time to time and how we might overcome them together. They are fully committed.

"We are in a good place with a strong franchise with consumers and an important job to do for Britain and British farming. We have owners who believe in that story."

Potts is the first to say that he didn't have a typical CEO's education.

"I started work at 12. I sold newspapers off the pavement in Manchester as a kid," he says.

"I started working at a fruit and veg shop in Manchester when I was 14. When I left school, just bang on 16, I joined Tesco as a counter assistant. I didn't do very well at school and didn't get any qualifications as such. I played football at school, but it didn't turn out too badly in the end.

"I was not an academic. It was tricky sometimes at school and I didn't really get my head round it."

The fact that Potts started life on the bottom rung and fully understands the challenges his colleagues face has held him in good stead with staff.

"Our people are the backbone of the business. Yesterday we were here ‘virtually’ with 500 colleagues, one from every store, in what we call Your Say - which is a pyramid of questions that folk have got," he says.

"Me and Clare Grainger, our people leader and one or two other senior people, we take those questions for an hour and a half. Their questions are always full of suggestions about how to improve the company.

"They are not moaning sessions - they are progressive comments. As I said to them yesterday, their questions are more important than our answers because their questions spark a million things in our minds, which is very important."

So, will he still be in the job in five years time? He looks nonplussed at this question so I ask him, how about one year?

"I very much hope to still be working at Morrisons."

In the same job? "Yes."

As a proud Mancunian, how does Potts feel about living on the other side of the Pennines?

"I love it. I'm very lucky. I live between Ilkley and Skipton in Addingham. It's very lovely and I'm very lucky to be living here. Obviously it's quite close to Manchester which is handy," he says.

"I like the contrast between the cities and the big towns in Yorkshire and the immediate national park and the countryside of the county. Its access to the rest of the UK is very decent. I love the scale of Yorkshire and the countryside. People are good fun, straight, quite amusing.

"When we first got here, we got to Skipton and a bloke opened his car door and you’d have thought he was getting out, but a goat got out," he laughs.

It's this unique mixture of hard work and mischief that makes Potts such a credible successor to Sir Ken's legacy.