Nish Kankiwala, the chief executive of John Lewis Partnership, is set to step down from his role and transition back to a non-executive position.
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 non-executive director assumed the CEO role in March 2023 to assist White with the daily operations of the business and to 'supercharge' its transformation.
The John Lewis Partnership, which also owns Waitrose, reduced its pre-tax losses from £59 million to £30 million in the six months leading up to July 27. The company announced that it is on track to achieve 'significantly higher' full-year profits this year.
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.”