Why Dame Sharon White failed at John Lewis

There are lots of plausible explanations for Dame Sharon White’s failure at the department store and grocery chain John Lewis. The retail environment was too tough. Her predecessor expanded too quickly. During a cost–of-living crisis and with the shift to online shopping it was always going to be a very tough gig. Yet once you look a little deeper, the real explanation is this: the quango-cracy, of which she was a leading member, is useless at running a real business.

With her early resignation today, Dame Sharon has, to her credit, recognised a fact that was already painfully obvious to everyone else. Put simply, she was not up to the task of turning around John Lewis, and it would be far better for someone with more experience of rescuing failing retailers to take over. The longer she stayed at the helm, the harder it would be to turn around either John Lewis or Waitrose.