John Lewis boss Pippa Wicks exited the business abruptly on Monday after almost three years at the department store. Her replacement, on an interim basis, is the business’s retail director Naomi Simcock.
A 12-year veteran of the partnership, Simcock is perhaps the retailer that many observers believe John Lewis has lacked in their senior leadership team.
Despite her experience as COO at The Co-op, Wicks was seen as a turnaround specialist as she spent much of her career in consultancies such as Bain and Alix Partners. Meanwhile John Lewis Partnership chair Dame Sharon White has no previous retail experience before joining the business in 2019.
Simcock on the other hand has spent 25 years working at John Lewis, Waitrose and M&S.
She became retail director of John Lewis in December 2020, and was previously director of retail change at Waitrose.
Her background lies in property and store development. She led Waitrose’s strategy property change programme, focusing on improving efficiency and reducing costs.
Like Wicks, she has experience in transformation, and describes herself as having “huge experience of landing large scale change programmes, delivered always with the customer front of mind”.
This will be vital to John Lewis, which has been undergoing a major turnaround. The scale of the project was laid bare when it unveiled a £99m loss in its most recent half year.
Simcock’s retail experience takes in finance – she started her career at M&S as finance manage – before branching into property and then retail.
She is also recognised for leading sustainability projects for major corporate organisations, according to her LinkedIn.
At Waitrose she was responsible for creating and developing the long term vision for sustainable development and delivery of its carbon plan and CSR targets for property.
Previously she worked at environment research company BRE.
As retailers focus more and more effort on their sustainability credentials her experience here will be vital.
Simcock may not be leading John Lewis on a permanent basis but her vast experience, particularly in cost reduction and retail transformation should see it through the short-term where the cost-of-living crisis will undoubtedly be making the department store’s turnaround more challenging.
