John Lewis appoints Sharon White as first black and first female chair

John Lewis has appointed former Ofcom chief Sharon White as its chair, making her the first black and first female holder of the role.

White said she was a “passionate believer” in the employee-owned retailer, and will take up the reins in early 2020 after four years heading the UK’s telecoms regulator.

She is already the first woman and first person of African-Caribbean heritage in her current role at Ofcom, according to PowerList.

She had previously served as one of Britain’s top civil servants, becoming only the second woman and the first black woman to serve as second permanent secretary to the Treasury overseeing public finances in 2013.

Charlie Mayfield, the current chair of John Lewis, suggested her non-retail background made her “not the conventional” choice, but said neither the company nor the modern retail environment were conventional.

He said she stood out as an “exceptional candidate,” and someone with the “vision, leadership, drive and flair” to steer the partnership in the future.

She is reportedly set to earn more than £900,000 a year in the role, and to have been offered the chance to tweak her ‘chairman’ title, but accepted it.

She had previously been touted as a potential successor to Mark Carney as governor of the Bank of England.

Born in Britain to Jamaican parents who migrated as part of the Windrush generation in the 1950s, she grew up in east London.

She studied economics at Cambridge University, and worked in a Birmingham church before joining the civil service as a graduate economist in 1989.

She has since worked largely in government including at the No.10 Policy Unit, as well as spells in Washington and the World Bank.

Her stint in government also included responding to the financial crisis at the Treasury over a decade ago.

White said in a statement released by John Lewis on Thursday: “It is a great honour to be asked to succeed Charlie [Mayfield] as the sixth chairman of the John Lewis Partnership.

“I am a passionate believer in the Partnership: Partners working together for each other’s wellbeing with the confidence to invest for the long-term and a focus on delivering for our customers in a rapidly changing retail environment,” she added.

“John Lewis & Partners and Waitrose & Partners are not merely British retail icons, but also a model of a better way to do business.”