Selfridges has hired high fashion house Chanel’s Chris May to fill their new role of group business development director.

The new appointment comes as the department store group, which consists of Selfridges in the UK, Holt Renfrew in Canada, de Bijenkorf in the Netherlands and Brown Thomas department store in Ireland, kicks off a multi-million pound redevelopment at its famous Oxford Street store.

A Selfridges Group spokeswoman said: “We can confirm that Chris May will be joining Selfridges group on December 1st as group business development director, reporting to Paul Kelly, group managing director. We believe his experience and expertise will be valuable to the businesses within the group.”

Earlier this month, Selfridges reported operating profits of £150 million for 2013 as a result of surging sales - a 12.3% increase on the year before. Sales increased 10.4% to £1.2 billion following major growth of its overseas online business.