John Lewis Partnership made a big hire last week, hiring its former fashion boss Peter Ruis as executive director to lead the turnaround of its department store business.
Ruis rejoins John Lewis after a 10-year absence this week and replaces Naomi Simcock, who has been leading the business on an interim basis over the past year and has now been promoted to operations director.
But who is John Lewis’ new boss and can he succeed in reviving its fortunes.
A force to be reckoned with
Starting his career as a buyer, Ruis has a strong background in fashion with stints at M&S, Ted Baker and Levi Strauss earlier in his career, and more recently led businesses including Jigsaw and Anthopologie.
Crucially, he has also fronted a turnaround at John Lewis in his first stint at the department store when he was buying and brand director.
Ruis joined the business in 2005 and transformed its fashion offering by ditching its more conservative brands in favour for big names like Jaeger, Hobbs, Mango and Whistles.
He also oversaw the relaunch of its fashion website back in 2009, helping to boost the retailer’s online profile, and introduced new in-store design concepts for its womenswear departments.
Ruis understood the psyche of the John Lewis customer and tapped into that with the launch of its provoking Christmas ads, setting a new standard for retail festive campaigns.
By the time he left the Partnership in July 2013, the group was boasting pre-tax profits of £409m and department stores sales were up 14% to £3.8bn.
In stark contrast, the Partnership made an eye-watering £234m loss in its last financial year.
It’s not just at John Lewis where Ruis has led a transformation. He also helped to piece Jigsaw back together again.
When he first arrived at the premium retailer in 2013, it was floundering and made a £21m loss that year. He returned the business to profit, weaning the chain off discounting, reinvigorating its product and restoring its brand power.
Ruis later joined Anthropologie as its managing director, where he strengthened its operations in the US and chartered its international expansion.
While Ruis’ background lies predominately in fashion, the new boss of John Lewis has also been building up his homewares expertise on the board of Dunelm for the last eight years.
The furniture retailer has become a force to be reckoned in recent years and has undoubtedly stolen market share from John Lewis.
Retail analyst Maureen Hinton points out that Ruis’ expertise at navigating homewares amid a challenging consumer environment will come in handy as John Lewis looks to revive its proposition.
Former Debenhams chief executive Steven Cook adds that Ruis’ recent tenure as CEO at Canadian books and music retailer Indigo will have “pulled and stretched him in different categories and different ways of doing things”.
“It’ll give them just a different lens, a broader lens, to look at this business,” adds Cook.
A popular appointment
Ruis clearly has much retail experience – something that has been missing at the top of John Lewis for some time.
Chair Dame Sharon White comes from the public sector, former John Lewis boss Pippa Wicks had a consultancy background and new partnership chief executive Nish Kankiwala comes from the world of consumer goods.
Not only is Ruis an experienced retailer, he also has a deep understanding of John Lewis and what makes it special.
His appointment has gone down well with peers and industry commentators.
Simon Carter, owner of the eponymous menswear brand that is sold at John Lewis, took to LinkedIn to applaud the retailer for “luring him back”.
“He wil bring decades of hands-on retail experience, gravitas, and industry-wide respect. An excellent move at a critical time for the Partnership. Expect to see a focus on core values such as service and product and ‘old school shopkeeping’ as well as innovation. Personally, this is the best news so far in 2024”, says Carter.
Hinton says that the appointment could illlustrate that John Lewis is going “back to its roots”, which she says could be just what it needs.
Retail analyst and partner at Thought Provoking Consulting Richard Hyman agrees that Ruis’ previous experience with the business during its heyday make him “the right guy to remind them what it is and to get them back on track”.
However, Cook points out that Ruis’ John Lewis experience could be both his biggest strength and also his biggest weakness.
“His biggest asset is the fact that he’s familiar with the business and was there when it was good. His biggest weakness is the fact it’s not the same market or leadership that it once was.”
What will Ruis do?
Ruis has a hard task ahead of him in returning the department store retailer back to its former glory.
The business faces steep competition from a resurgent M&S – which has strengthened its fashion credentials and revamped its stores – and a tough homewares and electricals market as consumers pull back on big ticket items.
Despite the big challenge in front of him, Ruis is confident he can lead the “next phase of the [Partnership’s] transformation”.
His first order of business could be to set out a new transformation strategy after CEO Kankiwala revealed last month that an updated plan would be presented to partners later this month or in February.
Hyman says: “Peter will want to have a big impact in the turnaround plan and he’ll want to be using his plan.”
Hinton adds: “He’s got a very strong buying and merchandising background so he’ll be looking at [John Lewis’] product offer, as well as the delivery of that offer.”.
However, one big challenge that could sit in Ruis’ way is financing the turnaround.
It was revealed last summer that John Lewis Partnership chair White was considering the possibility of changing the retailer’s mutual structure in order to sell a minority stake to raise between £1bn and £2bn of new investment.
However, Hyman shrugs off the possible roadblock: “That’s going to be a bit of a challenge [for Peter] but he’ll like that”.
Ruis has a strong track record of reviving struggling businesses, however, his new project will be his biggest yet.
With a deep understanding of what John Lewis, hopefully he can make it special once again. All in retail wish him well.
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