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Tesco veteran Jason Tarry will replace Dame Sharon White as chair of John Lewis Partnership, taking over the British retail group as it undergoes a painful turnaround to boost profitability.
Tarry, who spent 33 years working for the UK’s largest supermarket, most recently as its UK and Ireland chief executive, will start in September.
He will be the employee-owned group’s seventh chair after White’s almost five years at the helm — the shortest-serving chair in the partnership’s history.
White, who said last year she would leave John Lewis, will “support the transition as required”, the group said on Monday.
She lauded Tarry for having “a combination of fantastic retail experience with leadership through transformation” as John Lewis and Waitrose sought to revive their fortunes and focused on improving their retail strategy.
The group posted a return to profit last month after three years of losses as it scrapped targets to derive almost half of its earnings from outside retail by 2030.
Pre-tax profits were £56mn in the year to January, compared with a £234mn loss the previous year. Sales climbed 1 per cent to £12.4bn.
The board said the chair role would remain unchanged “at this critical point in the partnership’s transformation” after White last year appointed Nish Kankiwala, the retailer’s first chief executive in its history to help run the businesses.
A former John Lewis executive said: “Is he an executive or non-executive chair and what does that mean for Nish? That is the question he and the board need to answer. He needs to work out what he wants his role to be and how to run the board.”
Tarry was supportive of the partnership’s strategy and was looking forward to working closely with Kankiwala, the group said.
He ran Tesco’s operations in the UK and Ireland for six years and has knowledge of working in grocery, general merchandise and fashion, having joined as a graduate in 1990.
Zoe Mills, a retail analyst at GlobalData, said he “certainly has the experience and knowhow to rejuvenate the partnership”, adding: “He was at the helm of Tesco during the crucial development of its Clubcard loyalty scheme, taking the discounters head-on and creating a retail model that its competitors have emulated since.”
She added: “Within Waitrose, Tarry must not lose sight of its more premium proposition.”
Richard Hyman, retail analyst at Thought Provoking Consulting, described Tarry as “a proper retailer”, adding that “the challenges facing the partnership are retail issues and can only be solved through retail responses to those issues”.
GlobalData forecasts that rival Marks and Spencer will continue to gradually grow market share in the UK clothing and footwear sector out to 2027, while John Lewis’s share is expected to stagnate over the same period.
Rita Clifton, deputy chair of John Lewis Partnership, said the group was “in good financial health with a return to profit, and [has] a strong balance sheet with record investment planned this year”.
Tarry said he had “long been an admirer of the employee-ownership model” and said they had to be “brilliant retailers for customers and invest in growth”.
