{"id":8939,"date":"2023-03-26T14:20:39","date_gmt":"2023-03-26T14:20:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/mary-portas-warns-john-lewis-has-let-go-of-its-soul-in-open-letter-to-boss-sharon-white\/"},"modified":"2023-03-26T14:20:39","modified_gmt":"2023-03-26T14:20:39","slug":"mary-portas-warns-john-lewis-has-let-go-of-its-soul-in-open-letter-to-boss-sharon-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/mary-portas-warns-john-lewis-has-let-go-of-its-soul-in-open-letter-to-boss-sharon-white\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary Portas warns John Lewis has ‘let go of its soul’ in open letter to boss Sharon White"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Retail<\/a><\/p>
\n<\/p>\n

\n
\"John<\/div>\n
\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

<\/noscript><\/div>\n

\/\/<\/span> John Lewis has \u2018let go\u2019 of its soul under its new chairman, leading retail consultant Mary Portas claims<\/h6>\n
\/\/ <\/span>Mary Portas, 62, said she was speaking on \u2018behalf\u2019 of Britain in an open letter published this weekend<\/h6>\n\n

Retail consultant and broadcaster\u00a0Mary Portas warned John Lewis has \u201clet go of its soul\u201d following the news that the department store was considering ending its employee-owned business structure in order to attract investment.<\/p>\n

Portas published an open letter addressed to the company\u2019s chairman Sharon White and its incoming chief executive Nish Kankiwala on LinkedIn saying she was \u2018speaking up on behalf of the British nation\u2019.<\/p>\n

White is currently looking to raise between \u00a31 billion and \u00a32 billion of new investment but John Lewis\u2019s partnership model means it is unable to raise equity and has instead been forced to sell bonds.<\/p>\n\n

Subscribe to Retail Gazette for free<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Sign up\u00a0here\u00a0to g<\/span>et the latest news straight into your inbox each morning<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Ms Portas said on Linkedin: \u201cYour task isn\u2019t to turn around just another mediocre retailer under threat of going under. You\u2019re fighting to save part of our collective cultural identity.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut what\u2019s worrying me is that you might think your fight is purely financial. It\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe battle in hand is far more nuanced. It\u2019s about what makes up the soul of your brand.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe intangibles, the shared beliefs, the beautiful things that can\u2019t be captured in financial projections but earn a little space in people\u2019s hearts.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomehow, in recent years, you\u2019ve let go of the soul. We\u2019ve all felt the subtle, but powerful, erasure of what John Lewis is, a severing of what\u2019s always set your business apart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Richard Hyman: John Lewis \u2013 demutualisation will not fix a broken Partnership<\/p>\n\n

Following Portas\u2019 post on Linkedin, White responded and said it was \u2018the biggest privilege\u2019 of her life to act as chairman of John Lewis insisting she would ensure its survival.<\/p>\n

\u201cI became chairman because we are a co-owned business. It is why Nish, who has been in the partnership for two years, takes up the role of chief executive on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love our brands. Their strength isn\u2019t an accident of our being a partnership. It is because we are a partnership.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur partners who own the business are our greatest asset and our ownership of the partnership will remain.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve always been open to new partnerships with investors or like-minded companies to share in our growth. I will not rest until the partnership is restored to full health.\u2019<\/p>\n

The retail giant had previously recently warned of potential job cuts and told staff it would not hand out a bonus for only the second time since 1953.<\/p>\n

John Lewis Partnership, which includes Waitrose and John Lewis stores, reported an annual loss of \u00a3234million and warned of job cuts earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Dame Sharon hired former chairman of Hovis Nish Kankiwala as John Lewis\u2019s first chief executive, in an attempt to revive John Lewis\u2019s fortunes.<\/p>\n

Click here to sign up to Retail Gazette\u2018s free daily email newsletter<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Retail<\/a><\/p>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\/\/ John Lewis has \u2018let go\u2019 of its soul under its new chairman, leading retail consultant Mary Portas claims \/\/ Mary Portas, 62, said she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magazines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}