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The chief executive of John Lewis is stepping down after two years in the job, leaving new chair Jason Tarry as the sole leader of the group.
Nish Kankiwala will become a non-executive director advising the board by March next year, the company said on Monday. He joined the John Lewis Partnership as a non-executive director in 2021 but was subsequently asked to become its first ever chief executive in March last year, in a role created by previous chair Dame Sharon White.
He helped to run the department store business John Lewis and supermarket chain Waitrose during a challenging period when both struggled with increasing competition in the high street and online, high inflation and the fallout from shop closures during the pandemic.
The partnership has sought to diversify, saying it wanted to make almost half of its profits from non-retail activities such as property rentals but, more recently under Kankiwala it has prioritised retail as part of a longer-term revival plan.
This year, it posted its first full-year profit after three consecutive years of losses, and no staff bonuses. At its most recent half-year results in September, the group reported a narrowing of losses and a slight increase in half-year sales, and said that it expected “a significant uplift in profits for this full year”.
Tesco veteran Tarry started as chair in September, replacing White. The standalone role of chief executive will not be replaced.
Tarry will be in charge of the executive team, which includes John Lewis boss Peter Ruis and Waitrose head James Bailey, as well as the partnership board.
Kankiwala said he was delighted to have led the partnership “during this time of pivotal change”. He cited improvements in cash flow — which has allowed the business to make investments such as opening more branches of Waitrose — as one of his achievements.
Tarry said Kankiwala “has been instrumental in accelerating the transformation of the partnership”.
The chair role, which is enshrined in the partnership’s constitution, has widened over the years from activities such as representing the interests of employees and promoting the business, to a more hands-on position running the business.
