She is the East End born daughter of Windrush generation parents who smashed every glass ceiling she encountered on her way to the top of the business establishment.
Sharon White, the Cambridge educated former top Treasury mandarin and boss of the powerful media and communications sector regulator Ofcom notched up a series of firsts as a black woman as she rose to take on one of the scrutinised jobs in retail - chairing the John Lewis Partnership.
But this week, little more than three years into her tenure, it was announced that Dame Sharon - as she became in 2020 - will be stepping down when her term comes to an end in February 2025.
That may sound like an orderly handover, but for an organisation that has only been chaired by five people since 1929 it is a clear signal that this appointment just has not worked out.
So where did all go wrong for Sharon White in a career that had otherwise been one of trail-blazing progress and success?
Even when her predecessor Sir Charlie Mayfield announced in 2019 that a bureaucrat who has spent much of her working life in the corridors of Whitehall would lead the John Lewis Partnership the following year, he admitted she was not a “conventional” retail choice, adding: “But these are not conventional retail times.”
He wasn’t wrong, online only competitors were growing, costs such as business rates were biting and a number of department stores were losing money. But Mayfield could not have foreseen the unprecedented turbulence White would have to grapple with.
From the pandemic that forced lockdowns and store closures, to global supply chain fractures, and then a cost-of-living crisis, White has faced a cocktail of challenges since becoming the group’s sixth chairman, all while trying to boost sales and trim costs as part of a turnaround plan.
But Mayfield believed White, 56, who has a basic salary of £1.1 million, had the “vision, leadership, drive and flair to steer the partnership through its next phase”.
Even before she took over, John Lewis Partnership, which also owns the Waitrose supermarket chain, had not been without serious long-term problems including a debt mountain and increasing competition from nimbler online rivals.
But in March 2020, weeks after she started, all non-essential retailers were ordered to close for the first Covid-19 lockdown. So while Waitrose could welcome customers, albeit with restrictions in place, John Lewis department stores were not open for business. In results for the year to January 2021 White said: “The past year has been one of the most challenging in the partnership’s history.”
Those days are thankfully over but almost as soon had the pandemic eased, inflationary pressures and the cost of living crisis meant shoppers could not return to their old spending habits.
Zoe Mills, lead retail analyst at GlobalData says: “Dame Sharon White has been at the helm of the John Lewis Partnership during an exceedingly rocky period. She has faced unprecedented challenges, namely the global pandemic, and the cost-of-living crisis. Indeed, while she will have been its shortest-serving chair in its history, she will have withstood at least four Prime Ministers during her tenure.”
Anyone put in her position would have had to make radical changes for the business to survive, White unveiled a number of measures to help steer the company back to a better financial position. Difficult decisions included axing staff bonuses- a scheme that began in 1953- in a move to lower debts. Some 16 John Lewis branches have also closed, including a Midlands flagship in the heart of England’s second city Birmingham, since she became chairman, with the aim of concentrating on more profitable shops.
Plans to boost revenues also included a move into rental properties with scope for 10,000 homes, including some above stores, as part of bold ambitions to generate 40% of profits from outside retail by 2030. In 2021 the partnership launched investment products, such as a junior ISA, to customers after teaming up with digital wealth manager Nutmeg.
Efforts to attract more shoppers included the launch of Anyday, a new more affordable own-brand selling tech and fashion, and reducing prices by £100 million at Waitrose over the course of the year to January 2024.
While some moves have helped boost sales, the company has come under the spotlight over directions, or potential directions of the business that have attracted criticism.
It was reported in March that plans were being considered to dilute the famous partnership structure and bring in outside investment for the first time amid tough High Street conditions. The Sunday Times article that month said White was “understood to be in the early stages of exploring a plan to change the retailer’s mutual structure so it can try to raise between £1 billion and £2 billion of new investment”. When the plan encountered stiff internal opposition White later said that the partnership will always remain employee-owned, “no ifs, no buts”.
Earlier this year staff voted to back White in a confidence vote in her leadership during a turbulent period. Partnership council president Chris Earnshaw said: “The council voted in support of the chairman to progress the partnership in relation to its purpose, principles and rules. The council did not support last year’s performance, in which we reported a full year loss and no partner bonus.”
But the damage had been done. Reforming an institution like John Lewis is as hazardous as messing around with the schedule of Radio 4. If it works you might be forgiven, but if it does not then you will never win back the respect of your die hard loyalists.
The most recent financial updates last month showed that owing to inflationary pressures the partnership plan will take two additional years to deliver - in 2027/28 rather than 2025/26. There were some encouraging signs: for the six months to July 29 pre-tax losses narrowed by 41% to £59 million and sales improved 2% to £5.8 billion. The company added that 600,000 more customers shopped with it in the half, taking the total number of customers to 21.4 million. Meanwhile debts at 2022/23 stood at £1.7 billion, much improved from £3.6 billion as at 2014/15.
When the interim results were published, White said: “While change is never easy - and there is a long road ahead - there are reasons for optimism. Performance is improving. More customers are shopping with us. Trust in the brands and support for the partnership model remain high.”
But it was all too little too late. Just weeks later the end of her reign was confirmed.
Richard Lim, chief executive of analysts Retail Economics says whoever takes over is in for a serious challenge: “Sitting at the helm of the company is perhaps one of the toughest gigs in UK retail. Constrained by the partnership model, a large fixed cost-base and thriving digital competition makes for an incredibly challenging landscape.”
Russ Mould at broker AJ Bell says: “In the end, the business has a lot of legacy challenges – the never knowingly undersold tag, the big store format, and debt – that would have made life hard for many a management team, let alone during a pandemic and lockdowns, a period of supply chain disruption and then the return of inflation.”
He adds: “Having a chair who had no retail experience looked a brave call at the time and still does now, especially as the board is not bristling with life-long retailers even now (with certain notable exceptions). Retail is all about selling the right product at the right price in the right format and JLP’s overall results suggest it has not found, or lost, the magic formula. A better economics backdrop would help enormously and give the new chair a headstart which Dame Sharon never got.”
