John Lewis CEO to step back into non-exec role

Nish Kankiwala, the current chief executive office of John Lewis Partnership (JLP), is set to step back into a non-executive role from March 2025 following what the company said was “significant progression of the ongoing transformation”.

Kankiwala was appointed to the helm position in early 2023, and was immediately tasked with working on the company’s operating model as it embarked on a turnaround plan aiming to return it to profitability.

Kankiwala will not directly be succeeded for the top position, JLP confirmed in a press release, yet it was noted that newly appointed chairman Jason Tarry was to ultimately chair the executive team and partnership board.

Once he has stepped back, however, Kankiwala will continue to support the “next phase” of the company’s transformation as a non-executive board advisor.

It marks somewhat of a return for Kankiwala, who entered the, at the time, newly created CEO role for a “concentrated period” after previously serving as a non-executive. This was before he agreed to help accelerate the company in its phase of transformation.

Nish Kankiwala to return to advisor role by March 2025

During this two-year period, Kankiwala said the company had “refreshed its 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”.

In his statement, he continued: “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.”

JLP indeed returned to profit in the year to January 27, 2024, seeing a 290 million pounds year-on-year improvement in pre-tax profit over the period, while full-year sales rose 1 percent to 12.4 billion pounds.

It was in this report that the retailer also announced its intention to invest 542 million pounds into its ongoing turnaround plan, which took a retail-focused U-turn earlier in 2023 as it set its sights on simplifying the business and improving productivity.