Our ‘unconventional’ £1m new boss, by John Lewis
Store hires former civil servant as first female chairman in 155 years
John Lewis has appointed a woman chairman for the first time in its 155-year history – on a salary of nearly £1million a year.
Sharon White, 52, who is chief executive of media watchdog ofcom, will also become the retailer’s first black and ethnic minority chairman.
She will take over from Sir Charlie Mayfield, 52, early next year and will earn £990,000 a year.
Miss White, who has spent most of her career as a civil servant, had been touted as a candidate to replace Bank of England governor Mark Carney, who steps down in January.
She has earned plaudits for her role at ofcom where she forced BT to split off its cables business openreach to improve customer service and end its monopoly of the telecoms sector.
She has no retail experience but Sir Charlie noted that Miss White’s appointment came during ‘unconventional’ times for the industry.
‘I readily recognise that Sharon is not the conventional retail choice,’ he said.
‘But these are not conventional retail times, nor is the partnership a conventional company.’
The appointment comes as The John Lewis Partnership tries to modernise its image while struggling to grow sales.
The retailer, which also owns Waitrose, yesterday revealed plans to launch a virtual reality service so customers can see what furniture will look like in their home before buying.
Declared by her former boss Ken Clarke as one of the smartest people he’s worked with in 48 years in politics, Miss White has been a civil servant for 25 years.
She was the first black woman to land a string of senior Whitehall roles, with stints at the World Bank, the Downing Street policy unit, the Ministry of Justice and as second permanent secretary to the Treasury.
She is the daughter of Jamaican immigrants who migrated to the UK as part of the Windrush Generation in the 1950s when her father was 15 and her mother was 11. Miss White was born in east London and went to school in Leyton before graduating with a degree in economics from Cambridge University and later a Master’s in the same subject from University College London.
her husband is Robert Chote, the chairman of the office for Budget Responsibility, set up by former chancellor George osborne in 2010 to provide independent scrutiny of the Treasury.
The couple, who have two children, have been nicknamed Mr and Mrs Treasury.
They met while she was a junior official at the department and he was a reporter at The Independent. She will become John Lewis’s sixth chairman, fighting off competition from frontrunners which included finance director Patrick Lewis, whose great-grandfather founded the group in 1864, former Wh Smith boss Kate Swann, and Direct Line chief Paul Geddes.
Miss White will head the business alongside Paula nickolds, who became its first woman managing director in 2016.
She joins at a difficult time for the group after it was forced to slash its staff bonus to the lowest level since 1953 following a collapse in profits.
John Lewis has a unique partnership structure which distributes profits to all employees – described as partners – through bonuses.
Miss White said: ‘I am a passionate believer in the partnership: partners working together for each other’s wellbeing with the confidence to invest for the long-term and a focus on delivering for our customers.
‘John Lewis & Partners and Waitrose & Partners are not merely British retail icons, but also a model of a better way to do business.’
‘A better way to do business’