In 2023, John Lewis asked board member Nish Kankiwala to become its first CEO; after 3 years of losses, the retailer returned to profit in 2024 under his leadership

Nish Kankiwala did not walk into John Lewis as a stranger in 2023. He had already spent two years on the Partnership Board, joining in 2021 and seeing the retailer's transformation from inside. In March 2023, that outside-looking-in role changed. He became the company's first chief executive.

John Lewis Partnership had just reported a £78 million loss before tax and exceptional items for 2022/23. The previous year had produced a £181 million profit on the same measure. Inflation had added £179 million to the company's costs, while households were under pressure from higher living expenses.

Kankiwala was therefore taking charge of a business that needed better financial results and a different way of working. He was also dealing with two major retailers under one roof. John Lewis and Waitrose had different customers, different products and different challenges, yet both sat inside the same Partnership.

The store network showed how much John Lewis had already changed

John Lewis had closed 16 branches, while Waitrose had closed 13. The changes followed years of expansion and a shift in how people shopped. Between 2000 and 2015, the Partnership's estate had grown from 151 locations to 379. The physical network that once supported growth had become a much more complicated cost to manage.

The company was also refreshing some remaining Waitrose stores and changing how John Lewis approached customers. That history matters because Kankiwala's job was not simply to close more shops. The question was how to make the remaining business work better.

Before John Lewis, he had held senior roles at PepsiCo and Burger King and had led Hovis. John Lewis pointed to his experience in consumer businesses and turnarounds when announcing his appointment.

The money came from making the business work harder

During 2023/24, the Partnership delivered another £111 million in productivity improvements. Since its transformation programme began in 2021, recurring productivity savings had reached £420 million. The longer-term target was £900 million.

Those figures help explain how John Lewis returned to profit even though sales growth was limited. Partnership sales rose only 1% to £12.4 billion in 2023/24. The improvement came partly from stronger margins and efficiency gains rather than a sudden surge in demand.

Then John Lewis had to decide what its old price promise meant

For decades, Never Knowingly Undersold had been part of John Lewis's identity. The company retired the traditional promise in 2022 after finding it increasingly difficult to operate in a retail market dominated by online price comparison.

It returned in September 2024 in a different form.

John Lewis said it would match prices from 25 major retailers, covering both online and physical stores. Technology would track competing prices. The idea was familiar, but the system behind it had changed to fit modern shopping.

That shift says something about the wider problem Kankiwala faced. John Lewis could not simply preserve every part of its old retail model. Some of its most recognisable features had to be rebuilt around how customers now shop.

More than 200 Partners were working in specialist areas such as fashion styling, nursery advice and home appointments during 2023/24. Digital channels were also becoming a much larger part of the customer relationship, accounting for 53% of customers' shopping interactions.

The profit recovery came from different parts of the Partnership

John Lewis Partnership made £42 million of profit before tax and exceptional items. A year earlier, it had reported a £78 million loss on the same basis. Statutory profit before tax reached £56 million, compared with a £234 million loss in 2022/23.

The headline result can hide how uneven the recovery was.

John Lewis sales fell 4% to £4.8 billion. Yet its trading operating profit increased by £13 million to £689 million, helped by stronger margins and efficiency savings.

Waitrose was moving differently. In the first half of 2024/25, its sales increased 5%, while John Lewis sales fell 3%. The Partnership's underlying loss narrowed sharply, from £57 million to £5 million.

Kankiwala left before the turnaround had run its course

Kankiwala's tenure was always framed as a particular phase of the transformation. In October 2024, John Lewis said he would return to a non-executive role by March 2025. The Partnership chose not to appoint another CEO directly into the position. Chairman Jason Tarry would instead take responsibility for the Executive Team as well as the Partnership Board.

By then, the financial picture had changed considerably. John Lewis had moved from three years of losses to profit, productivity savings had grown substantially, and the company was preparing to invest £542 million in the following year.