The managing director of the UK's Waitrose supermarket chain is stepping down after a 33-year career with owner John Lewis Partnership.
Mark Price, also John Lewis’s deputy chairman, will leave on 3 April next year, the London-based company said in a statement Tuesday.
He will be succeeded by Rob Collins, Waitrose's retail director.
Price is "pursuing new opportunities," John Lewis Chairman Charlie Mayfield said in the statement. UK newspaper reports have said Price is close to being appointed as interim chairman of broadcaster Channel 4.
Collins has been with John Lewis for 22 years, the last eight of which have been at Waitrose, where he became retail director in 2012.
Commenting on the news, Neil Saunders, Managing Director of Conlumino, said: "Senior management change at the Partnership is rather like the regeneration of Doctor Who: it's something that does not happen very often, so is all the more significant when it does."
He added "The Waitrose Mr Price leaves is remarkably different to the one he inherited when he became Managing Director in 2007. Back then Waitrose was a moderately successful grocer, but one that lacked a sense of ambition, national scale, and commercial rigour. Eight years have changed all that. Almost 200 stores have been added, the online business has been transformed, and the supply chain has been completely overhauled."
Article by Bloomberg, with additional reporting from Conlumino, edited by ESM. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
