Company chairman Tim Jones said: “We are really pleased to add Stuart’s considerable talent to our team. We have ambitious plans and adding someone of Stuart’s pedigree is demonstration of our determination to achieve these goals.
“He joins the company as we plan to build on our current strong performance levels by contributing his large scale retail and leisure business experience.”
Lawson added: “I am honoured to join such a successful business at such an exciting time in its development.
“My role is to bring independence, impartiality, wide experience, specialist knowledge and strategic thinking to this talented board.”
Earlier this year CH&Co announced a 26% rise in turnover to £97m and expects to comfortably break the £100m turnover milestone this year. It further predicts that double digit growth will take sales to £145m by 2017.
Lawson is a qualified accountant whose early career was with Diageo in finance and commercial roles, latterly as finance director of Burger King, and then chief executive of Alldays and SFI Group.
He has spent the last five years at partner level at accountancy firm KPMG working across a variety of business sectors in the UK and overseas.