John Lewis Partnership CEO Nish Kankiwala is stepping down and moving back to a non-executive role.
Kankiwala will return to the board in March 2025 to support new chairman Jason Tarry, who took over from Dame Sharon White last month.
The former outside director took on the CEO role in March 2023 to assist White in the day-to-day running of the business and “highlight” its transformation.
The John Lewis Partnership, which also owns Waitrose, narrowed its pre-tax loss from £59m to £30m in the six months to 27 July. The company said it was on track to deliver a “significantly higher” full-year profit this year.
Kankiwala said: “The board asked me to transition from my role as non-executive director to CEO as early as March 2023. This was due to such a significant time for the partnership and to accelerate this phase of change.
“I was delighted to agree to take on the role for two years at this time of key change. Since then, we have updated our partnership strategy to be retail based. we significantly improved our cash flow enabling record investments for growth; and returned the partnership to a full-year win.
“It has been the privilege of my life to lead the Partnership as CEO during this time of intense change. I am very proud of what we have achieved so far – thanks to the hard work and dedication of our partners.
“I have every confidence that Jason will lead the partnership into a stronger transformation for us in the next phase, and I 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 key role he has played for the partnership, first as a non-executive director and more recently as CEO.
“During the last two years, he has been an important part of accelerating the change of the partnership. It is a pleasure to work with Nish and I am grateful that he has agreed to continue as an external advisor to the Board, and his continued support is invaluable.