Bolland worked in various international management positions in Africa and Central Europe before joining the Heineken board in 2001.
Morrisons had acquired Safeway in 2004 creating a 130,000 people strong retail conglomerate in the UK.
[5] By 2008, Morrisons had achieved strong growth in both market share and profits, and in 2008, Bolland was announced as The Times' "Businessman of the year".
[11] In January 2016, it was announced that Bolland would be retiring as CEO of Marks and Spencer effective April 2016, and would be replaced by Steve Rowe.
[12][13] In September 2016, Bolland joined Blackstone as Senior Managing Director and Head of European Portfolio Operations for its Private Equity business.
The concept has been further developed in partnership with Microsoft, and has become “The Learning Passport”,[20] which has been used by 1.5 million children and was nominated as one of the top 100 innovations of 2021 by Time Magazine.