Morrisons' new chief executive has vowed the supermarket giant will not be undergoing any dramatic changes to the way it operates - despite yesterday unveiling a major boardroom shake-up.

Bob Stott, who had previously been joint managing director of the Bradford-based company, said the company would be sticking to its "old-fashioned values of good retailing".

But he did admit that Morrisons realised it was now playing in a much bigger league as a result of last March's £3 billion Safeway takeover.

As reported in yesterday's Telegraph & Argus, chairman Sir Ken Morrison announced Mr Stott's new position as well as the resignation of finance director Martin Ackroyd as the company reported a slump in pre-tax profits.

Mr Stott admitted that, since the expansion, the company - famously noted for Sir Ken's firm leadership style - now recognised that it needed to have "a broader breadth of decision making".

"We accept that we are an appreciably larger company than we were previously and that we do have to pay more adherence to issues of corporate governance and all that goes with that," he said. "The family shareholding is now somewhat smaller and there are now a lot more outside shareholders. But we will not run the company any differently because we will be looking to be as efficient as possible and stick to our good retail habits."

New deputy chairman David Jones, the non-executive director, will now begin the hunt for new non-execs to join the board. The only other non-executive director, Duncan Davidson, the boss of housebuilder Persimmon, quit yesterday for personal reasons.

Meanwhile, Mr Stott paid tribute to Mr Ackroyd, who had been with the firm for 31 years but came under fire after last week's profit warning which stemmed from accountancy problems at Safeway.

Mr Ackroyd, who is from Bradford, was appointed to the main board in 1987 and was responsible for all financial affairs and investor relations. He will stay on the board until May's annual meeting and could even take up a new role with the company after that. Mr Stott said: "Martin is a very private person who has worked very, very hard for the company. He was due for re-election anyway in May.

''He has wanted a less high-profile role than what it has become since last July the time of the first profit warning. This last week has just made his mind up.''