Dick Smith has appointed Robert Murray as its new chairman following the announcement current chairman and director, Phil Cave, who lead the turnaround of the electronics chain ahead of its listing to the ASX, will retire next year.

Murray, the former CEO of brewer, Lion Nathan, joined the board in August,and will begin as chairman on February 28.

Murray is a director of Super Retail Group, Southern Cross Media Group, Linfox Logistics, and the Kirin International Advisory board.

Nick Abboud, MD and CEO of Dick Smith, said Cave was “instrumental in the success to date of the turnaround of Dick Smith”.

“His counsel and encouragement of the management team has been an integral in Dick’s Smith transformation from an underperforming business to the strongly growing business we have today. The speed and sustainability of the transformation is quite phenomenal and would not have occurred  as successfully without Phil’s input,” Abboud said.

Last week, Dick Smith announced it was on track to lift its first half sales by about 10 per cent.

The retailer expects to record low double digit or high single digit sales growth for the first six months of the 2014/15 financial year.

Like for like sales, which exclude the impact of new store openings and closures, are expected to rise between 1.5 and two per cent.

Total sales were up 10.1 per cent for the first 15 weeks of the year, while like for like sales rose 1.7 per cent so far.