Weeks after Jason Tarry became Chairman of the John Lewis Partnership, it has been announced that its Chief Executive, Nish Kankiwala, will revert back to a non-Executive role by March 2025.
The owner of the John Lewis and Waitrose chains stated that in light of the progression of its turnaround plan over the last couple of years, the role of CEO will not be directly replaced. Instead, Tarry, the ex-CEO of Tesco’s UK & Ireland business, will chair its Executive Team as well as the Partnership’s Board after a transition period.
Kankiwala will continue to “support the next phase of the Partnership’s transformation” as a non-Executive board advisor.
He said: “The Board asked me to move across from my Non-Executive Director role to Chief Executive back in March 2023. This was in view of such a significant time for the Partnership and to help accelerate this phase of the transformation. I was delighted to agree to take on the role for a two-year period during this time of pivotal change. Since then, we’ve refreshed our Partnership strategy to be rooted in retail; significantly improved our cash flows to enable record investment for growth; and returned the Partnership to full-year profit.
“It’s been the privilege of my life to lead the Partnership as CEO during this period of intense transformation. I am hugely proud of what we’ve achieved so far – thanks to the hard work and dedication of our Partners. I have every confidence in Jason taking the Partnership from strength to strength in the next phase of our transformation and am delighted to continue to support him and the Board in an advisory capacity going forward.”
Tarry added: “I would like to thank Nish for the pivotal role he has played for the Partnership, first as Non-Executive Director of the Board and recently as CEO. In the past two years he has been instrumental in accelerating the transformation of the Partnership. It’s a pleasure to work alongside Nish and I’m grateful that he has agreed to stay on as a non-Executive board advisor and his ongoing support will be invaluable.”
Tarry replaced Sharon White last month after five years in charge. She led the business through the pandemic and a period of high inflation while trying to improve trading amid criticism that she lacked the retail skills to turn the business around. Tarry has been tasked with driving the next phase of JLP’s modernisation and growth, with analysts expecting him to introduce some Tesco-inspired strategies.
