Senior BTR Leadership Team - John Lewis Partnership

case study

What was the company?

John Lewis Partnership is the UK's largest employee-owned business and parent company of two cherished retail brands – John Lewis & Partners and Waitrose & Partners. They have announced plans to move into the residential property market by building 10,000 homes for rental over the next few years. The department store chain wants to address the national housing shortage and support local communities. The retailer has identified space for 7,000 rental homes across its property portfolio.

What was the situation?

John Lewis Partnership are looking to appoint two executive roles to lead and be responsible for defining the strategy for the development and operations of the JLP Build to Rent (BTR) portfolio. The two appointments play a significant leadership role in driving their profit and investment goals to ensure this new area of growth delivers the Partnership Plan ambition.

What was the methodology?

Nick advised John Lewis Partnership to undertake a retained search methodology to complete both strategic hires. Phase 1 to this was understanding John Lewis Partnership’s job brief, company culture, work environment and reason for hiring. Next was to develop an ideal candidate specification; finalise key competencies and the criteria of experience. Finally, to develop and finalised a search strategy, and agree the target list with all stakeholders before moving onto Phase 2 which was approaching candidates.

What was the outcome?

Since launching the project, Nick has successfully completed Phase 1 of the search, and has started Phase 2 by identifying best in class candidates who have been approached with a cohesive attraction message and job description. Both searches are being led by the executive search team with the assistance of deverellsmith’s data & research team. We are now moving onto Phase 3 (interview & compliance check). At present, deverellsmith are on track to complete the recruitment project in agreed time scales.