Top manager Moira Dean talks us through her decision to leave Premier DUSA.
By Sarah Britton
After a decade at the heart of convenience retail, Moira Dean has made the difficult decision to leave Premier DUSA (Dundee University Students’ Association) and take on a new role at Costa Coffee.
Anyone who has met Moira knows what a force of energy she is. When she took the reins at Premier DUSA, she was determined to build the team’s confidence and encourage them to aim high.
“I was just giving the team the belief that they could do it,” she says. “For me, it’s always the staff and team that come first and then everything else will follow after it.”
Her approach helped transform the store. Under her management, Premier DUSA went from strength to strength, earning widespread recognition.
At the SLR Awards in June, Moira and staff member Jackie collected the store’s fourth consecutive Sustainability Retailer of the Year award, providing a fitting conclusion to her time with the business.
Despite the success, Moira describes her decision to leave as “one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make”.
While no single factor prompted her departure, the challenges facing convenience retailers played a major role. Rising legislation and increasing retail crime were among her concerns.
“Shoplifting has not helped,” she says. “It’s just getting unbelievable now. Nothing seems to be on the side of the retailer these days. It just seems to be one hurdle after another.”
The wider situation at the University of Dundee also weighed heavily. Although employed by DUSA rather than the university itself, Moira says the store is closely connected to the institution.
With DUSA’s funding reduced by 34% and university redundancies announced, she has seen the impact first hand.
“You see people coming in who have been here 30 years and they’ve just been told they’re being made redundant,” she says.
The uncertainty surrounding the university’s future also affected the store’s outlook.
“They’re all our customers during the summer while there’s no students,” she explains. “You start to wonder how safe is it if they make any more redundancies?”
Leaving her team behind has been particularly difficult, but Moira believes they are well equipped for the future.
“My team are brilliant,” she says. “I’ve got them where they need to be. They don’t need me now. They are more than great at what they do.”
Her confidence in the team is well founded. They were named Team of the Year at the 2025 Above & Beyond Awards.
She will also miss the relationships she has built across the sector.
“Sitting at the SLR Awards with that wider retail family and real friends that I’ve found – Antony and Cara Begley, Natalie Lightfoot, Nathalie Fullerton, Graham Watson, Guna and Shamly Sud, and everyone else – I said to Jackie, ‘If anything could change my mind about what I’m thinking of doing, it would be this.’”
Ultimately, however, she felt it was time to put her own wellbeing first.
“That’s been the hardest thing, putting me first instead of here and the team,” she says. “I just thought in the end, life’s a bit too short, so I’m going to make the move.”
Team SLR wishes Moira every success in her new role. Given everything she achieved at Premier DUSA, it is unlikely to be long before she is making her mark at Costa as well.
