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John Lewis Partnership COO Andrew Murphy has announced his intention to leave the retail group after 30 years.
He will leave next summer, after he revealed his decision was influenced by the milestone of reaching 30 years with the company, and the desire to pursue other opportunities.
Writing on Linkedin, Murphy said: “I’ve never dwelt on my age or anyone else’s. But there was something about hitting 50 that seemed to aggressively shatter any illusion I might have had that time – my time – was unlimited. It shouted at me like no ‘milestone’ ever had; ‘Tick tock…
“Then, late last year, I started to become overly aware that – by August 2022 – I’d have been with the John Lewis Partnership for 30 years. From the gates of university. “WTAF?!” as my (otherwise fairly well spoken) kids would say.
He added: “I found myself buying ‘Four Thousand Weeks’ by Oliver Burkeman and ‘Top Five Regrets of the Dying’ by Bronnie Ware. I enjoyed them, but more importantly had to accept that having them on my bedside table indicated there’d been a shift in my mindset and a significantly increased awareness of the passing of time.
“To say that I consider myself fortunate is a significant understatement. But, despite that, I never wanted this to be my only – or final – gig. Tick tock…”
Sharon White, chairman of JLP, said: “It is with a great deal of sadness that I am announcing today that Andrew Murphy will leave the partnership in Summer 2023, after a 30 year career which began in John Lewis Aberdeen as a selling assistant and ultimately spanned a number of operating board and executive team roles.
“Andrew has been an outstanding partner and an outstanding leader, under three chairmen. He has been incredibly kind and generous to me personally and has been a huge source of support and guidance to the board and executive team whose memberships have been entirely refreshed during his time as an executive director.”
She added: “From his pivotal role in establishing JL as the UK’s pre-eminent omni-channel retailer, as JL Retail Director, to his leadership of the partnership as Group COO, navigating us so successfully through the pandemic, we owe him a huge debt of gratitude.”
