John Lewis managing director Peter Ruis quits job after less than three years

Surprise departure comes after department store chain’s chair warned of ‘really tough trading conditions’

The managing director of John Lewis has quit the job after less than three years in charge of the British department store chain, as the company faces “really tough” trading conditions.

Peter Ruis will leave the business in order to “pursue new projects”, John Lewis said in a statement on Monday.

He will be replaced by Will Kernan, a non-executive board member of the employee-owned John Lewis Partnership, which also runs the Waitrose supermarket chain. Kernan said in a statement that John Lewis still had “significant headroom for growth”.

The surprise departure comes after John Lewis’s chair, Jason Tarry , last week warned of “really tough” trading conditions in an interview with the company’s in-house magazine.

John Lewis had felt confident enough in the economic outlook in March to pay its 69,000 workers – which it calls partners – an annual bonus for the first time in four years after underlying profits rose. Staff shared a bonus pot of £35m, worth about one week’s extra pay each.

However, the US-Israeli war on Iran has caused a rise in inflation as oil prices have soared. That has put shoppers under pressure and raised costs for retailers.

Tarry indicated in the interview that “we have to adjust for an immediate future that we weren’t expecting even six months ago, let alone a couple of years ago”.

Ruis had returned to John Lewis at the start of 2024, after leading retailers including Jigsaw and Anthropologie. During his previous nine-year stint Ruis was John Lewis’s buying and brand director.

He oversaw investment in the 36 John Lewis department stores that remained after the company closed 16 during the coronavirus pandemic , and as recently as November he told the Guardian that he was looking at expansion .

Ruis will stay in post until 6 September. Kernan, a non-executive director since 2023, will take over in the middle of September as the retailer prepares for its Christmas peak trading period. John Lewis has started a search for a new non-executive director.

Kernan has previously served as chief executive of River Island, The White Company and the cycling shop Wiggle, and spent 13 years at New Look.

Ruis said: “After nearly three years of significant investment and modernisation, the business is now on a much stronger footing. I’m so proud of what we’ve achieved, and there is so much more still to come.” Kernan said: “Having served on the partnership’s board for three years, I have a clear understanding of the John Lewis business and a huge appreciation for the partnership’s values and employee-ownership model. We have significant headroom for growth and I’m looking forward to leading the team to ensure John Lewis remains the country’s most trusted and loved retailer, in store and online.” Tarry said: “Peter has done a fantastic job and will be missed by all of our partners. He’s injected energy and pace into the John Lewis transformation and we are sad to see him go.”

Separately, the Co-op Group on Monday announced that its chair, Debbie White, had decided to step down after two years that included steering the group, which runs convenience stores, insurance, legal services and funeral parlours, through a major cyber-attack .

The senior independent director Moni Mannings was appointed as interim chair to oversee the hiring of a new permanent chief executive after the March departure of Shirine Khoury-Haq amid claims of a “toxic culture”. Khoury-Haq said colleagues had told her they did not recognise the criticisms, and she denied her departure was in relation to the allegations.