Dunkerton brought in former B&Q and Co-op executive Euan Sutherland as chief executive in October 2014, but he retains a hands-on role as product and brand director.
The controversy surrounding Co-op executive pay came after the group was brought almost to the brink when a £1.5bn black hole was found in its bank's balance sheet.
When he completed 20 years on the round in 2014, the Midcounties Co-op chief executive, Ben Reid, congratulated him in person in the store.
Sir Christopher Kelly was handed the lucrative deal by Euan Sutherland, the Co-op chief executive who walked out last week when his pay arrangements were leaked to this newspaper.
The Co-op chief executive, Peter Marks, had admitted that he could not "predict whether we'll get to the end on this".
It was put up for sale in February by former Co-op chief executive Euan Sutherland as it was not considered a core part of the business.
Co-op chief executive Barry Tootell resigned in the wake of a devastating downgrade to the bank's credit by Moody's which pushed it down six notches from "investment grade" to junk at the stroke of a pen.
Co-op chief executive Peter Marks described the acquisition as a "transformational deal" for the Co-op, saying it would give a major boost to the group's drive to double its profits over the next three years.
When the former Co-op chief executive Peter Marks appeared before his committee in October last year, Mann did not exactly mince his words: the group's management, he seethed, had overseen a "catastrophe"; they had "reached for the sky... [and] got nowhere near it", and then left "someone else to inherit the mess".
Co-op chief executive Euan Sutherland resigned on Tuesday.
Euan Sutherland, the former Co-op chief executive who resigned after details of his pay were leaked to The Observer, argued that democracy and values might be vital, but without radical change the whole future of the business was at risk.
