Nina Bhatia: the woman taking John Lewis from homewares to housing

theguardian.com:

Nina Bhatia’s first memories of John Lewis are of the calm of the haberdashery department, trailing after her mother as she bought dressmaking supplies in the 1980s.

Her first weeks as an employee of the department store group, which also owns the Waitrose supermarkets, could not have been more different. She arrived as strategy director just a month before the Covid pandemic kicked off in the UK, forcing the temporary closure of all non-food stores for months on end under government restrictions.

As the head office team switched to working from home during the early days of the pandemic, Bhatia said her first months were “an extraordinary experience, starting a new job with a new team who I had barely met”.

She is one of five women on the seven-strong board, including the chair, Sharon White. They come from a broad range of backgrounds with plenty of experience from outside the tight-knit retail world.

That diversity gives John Lewis a leadership which better represents its staff (who are called partners, because between them they own the company);

Age 56

Family Married with two daughters, 19 and 21.

Education BA in law, Cambridge; MBA, Harvard business school.

Pay Not disclosed.

Last holiday Last family holiday to New York, much delayed by lockdown; most recent trip to Puglia.

Best advice she has been given “When you are not sure what to do, create high-quality options (so I’ve said yes to things before I knew quite how I would tackle them).”

Biggest career mistake “While I’ve worked on projects in many different countries and studied in the US, I never took the opportunity to live and work in another country.”

Words she overuses “Probably ‘options’ – in much current use with my daughters and my team!”

How she relaxes Travel;