John Lewis restructures brand and strategy team

John Lewis has promoted merchandise director Jill Little to strategy director and created a new buying and brand director role.

John Lewis

Peter Ruis, who is currently fashion buying director, will take up the newly created buying and brand director role in August.

He will be responsible for John Lewis’s buying operations, customer proposition and marketing. He will also take a seat on the board.

Ruis says he aims to take the John Lewis brand forward with “new initiatives coupled with a future proposition dedicated even more to predicting and meeting all our customers’ requirements.”

Little will take up the strategy director role in August until she retires from the business in March 2011.

She has been with the partnership for 33 years.

Andy Street, managing director, John Lewis, says: “It is hard to encapsulate all Little has done for the John Lewis operation but the market share we have gained while she has been merchandise director, as well as the current success of our recent advertising, coupled with clear growth in our business all speak volumes about the debt we owe to Jill.”

John Lewis recently launched a TV campaign showing a woman progressing through the key stages of her life to promote its “Never knowingly undersold” proposition.

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