John Lewis Partnership boss Nish Kankiwala is to step back from his chief executive role as he reverts back to a non-executive.
Kankiwala will resume his position on the board in March 2025 to support new chairman Jason Tarry, who succeeded Dame Sharon White last month.
The former non-executive took up the CEO role in March 2023 to help White with the day-to-day running of the business and to “supercharge” its transformation.
The John Lewis Partnership, which also owns Waitrose, slashed its pre-tax losses from £59m to £30m in the half to 27 July as it revealed it was on track to deliver “significantly higher” full-year profit this year.
Related Story
Kankiwala 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.”
Click here to sign up to Retail Gazette‘s free daily email newsletter
