Managing director, John Lewis

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The flamboyant Street’s profile went through the roof this year when he starred in a fly-on-the-wall BBC programme on the department store. The chain’s former HR director took the view that the positive PR benefits outweighed the downsides. Street appears to enjoy the limelight, arguing that it allows him to reflect the store chain’s strengths.

The slightly built Street is a ‘lifer’ who joined John Lewis straight out of Oxford in 1985, becoming a store manager before moving into head office, but his ebullient persona is in stark contrast to the rather conservative image of a typical senior John Lewis executive.

He enjoyed a baptism of fire, taking over as managing director as the recession hit John Lewis’s sales hard, but the stores have recovered well in the past year. Street has overseen the development of its slimmed-down out-of-town format John Lewis at Home.

The offer has got off to a promising start and allowed the chain to resume store development in the absence of new shopping centre developments, and get into affluent towns such as Tunbridge Wells.

John Lewis has recently won accolades for its powerful TV ad campaign, and continues to develop its multichannel proposition.