Andy Street, the managing director of John Lewis, has applied to become the Conservative party candidate for mayor of the West Midlands and will step down from the department store if he is successful. If selected as the Tory party candidate, he will be up against Labour Siôn Simon, MEP for the West Midlands and a former Birmingham MP. Frontrunners to replace Street at John Lewis are retail director Mark Lewis, a former managing director of eBay UK who joined to lead the group’s online business in 2013, and commercial director Paula Nickolds, who has worked at John Lewis since 1994. Steve Hollis, deputy chair of GBSLEP, said Street had used his John Lewis experience to drive transformation in the region. Street’s political ambitions come after the former managing director of Waitrose, Mark Price, left the supermarket and became minister for trade and investment.

Source: The Guardian September 09, 2016 10:52 UTC