Lane Fox

Martha Lane Fox, the 30-year-old multi-millionaire co-founder of the Internet company lastminute.com, is poised to become the new head of the Selfridges empire.

Lane Fox has been offered a job as right-hand woman to Galen Weston, the Canadian billionaire who owns the Oxford Street department store as well as the fashionable Brown Thomas store in Dublin. Friends say that she is about to accept and is “thrilled” about her new post.

“It has been one of the best-kept secrets in the history of retailing,” one of Weston’s senior executives said on Saturday, disclosing that Allan Leighton, the Royal Mail chairman, had played a key role in her appointment.

“Allan Leighton is chairman of lastminute.com and sits on the board of a number of Galen’s companies, including Selfridges, and was instrumental in getting Martha on board.

“Obviously she will have a few ideas about developing their Internet shopping activities, but it’s her salesmanship and sheer verve that made him certain that she would be perfect. Galen, who is an old friend of Allan’s, is thrilled by the turn of events.”

A friend of Lane Fox added: “Having got a company off the ground that no one had heard of, Martha relishes the challenge of a business that owns so many household names, and driving them forward with the enthusiasm that is her hallmark.

Lane Fox, who is on holiday in Australia, has been telling her friends and family that she is excited about her new job.