How retail changed my life: Sainsbury’s Ziggie Singh – becoming a somebody

Ziggie Singh Sainsburys

Harsimran ‘Ziggie’ Singh was a fresh-faced teenager when he told his parents that he wanted to work in his local shop rather than go to college. 

For his father, an immigrant who moved from India to Kent before Singh was born, a job in food retail did not exactly represent the “chosen” career.

“My brothers were in college and university, and that was the chosen path really,” Singh explains. “The thinking was that you needed to do academically a lot better than just finish school in order to succeed.” 

But after more than 30 years in food retail – and no college or university qualifications to his name – Sainsbury’s head of stores for northwest London Singh is living, breathing proof of how the industry offers opportunity and champions talent from all walks of life.

 

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