THE JOHN LEWIS STORY

John Lewis, a philosopher and town councillor and founder of the chain of home stores in his own name, was born on February 24th 1836 in Shepton Mallet, Somerset, and became an orphan at the age of seven. Having served as an apprentice to a local draper from the age of 14, he moved to London to become a silk buyer, working in Peter Robinson’s Department Store at Oxford Circus by the time he was 20.

He first opened his eponymous flagship store on Oxford Street, London, a drapery shop, opened in 1864. In 1905, Lewis acquired a second store, Peter Jones in Sloane Square, London.

Lewis was not considered a popular employer, with a habit to dismissing staff arbitrarily. The stores had difficulty retaining staff – there was a strike in 1920 – and performed poorly compared to some of his rivals. His sons constantly disagreed with his business methods. It was his eldest son, John Spedan Lewis, who began the John Lewis Partnership, a workers’ cooperative – in 1929 after thinking up the idea during his days in charge of Peter Jones. He also thought up the idea of the

Life After The Civil Service

At the end of 2014, Ofcom, the broadcast and media regulator announced White would be the chief executive from March 2015, replacing Ed Richards as the previous chief executive and Steve Unger as interim chief executive.

It was a role she held for just over four years. In June 2019, White announced that she would be leaving that role to replace Sir Charlie Mayfield as the chair of the John Lewis Partnership (JLP).

White was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2020 New Year Honours for public service

At the Treasury, she supervised a review of the fi nancial management of government and the Treasury’s management response to the banking crisis of 2008. She was Director General for Public Spending at the Treasury from 2012-13, ultimately replacing Tom Scholar as Second Permanent Secretary in 2013.

She was the fi rst black person to become a Permanent Secretary at the Treasury, and the second woman after Dame Anne Mueller in the 1980s.

MR & MRS TREASURY

White married economist Robert Chote in 1997, when she was working at the British embassy in DC, and Chote was working for the International Monetary Fund. Chote has been the chairman of the Office of Budget Responsibility since 2010. Th is led certain parts of the media to dub them, “Mr and Mrs Treasury”.

White was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2020 New Year Honours for public service. She took the name Dame Sharon White, Lady Chote.

White succeeded Mayfield during a meeting of the John Lewis Partnership Council on February 4th 2020, on a salary of £990,000 – a significant increase on her previous salary, which was £341,700 according to data released by Ofcom.

Investment Controversy

The John Lewis Partnership had been started in 1929 by John Lewis’ eldest son John Spedan Lewis. It was effectively a co-operative or mutual society where profits were reinvested back into the business to its workers.

At the end of 2022, Dame Sharon, seeing the trouble the company was in, sought to bring in outside investment. Previous chairman Sir Stuart Hampson was appalled