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Join John Lewis or Waitrose today

If you've ever stepped through the doors of a John Lewis or Waitrose shop, shopped online, or seen any of our adverts, you'll know there's something unique about us.

That unique proposition is our Partners. As co-owners they have a say in our business and receive a share of the profits, so they put time and effort into making it work. Our Partners are the reason we're the success we are. They're our secret sauce; the opportunity for us to differentiate.

Job Summary:

Job Description:

As our new Head of Distribution you will spearhead transformative change in Waitrose and Partners, shaping the future of our multi temperature grocery distribution. You will be responsible for leading the Distribution operations, emerging business strategy and delivering a cost effective and resilient supply chain.

This role will challenge you to contribute to the development and delivery of the strategic direction of our operations to drive change across our Partner led Distribution centres and 3PL operations where you will anticipate tomorrow’s challenges but lead today.

This is an exciting role where you will continuously review the operational landscape to maintain alignment to business priorities, navigate our contract negotiations and deliver on our automated future.

A bit about you:

Adopting an Agile approach in our ever changing landscape is key. You will lead the change across the function and proactively planning and anticipating business performance, consistently maximising efficiencies whilst maintaining a high performing operation. You will also own the network strategy and manage the strategy for all third party relationships.

To find out more about the Key accountabilities for this role, please review the job outline attached (for internal Partners, please copy and paste this hyperlink into your browser: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qbdP0j1cxcue9dPIyCFcPJL0KbFLWItX/view?usp=drive_link

Essential Skills and Experience:

• Significant experience working in a senior operational position within logistics/supply chain/ fulfilment.

• Managing all legal requirements, business and safety compliance risk across the distribution network, including reputational risk from both internal and external providers

• Experience of leading large, diverse and geographically spread teams both in-house and large outsourced contracts. You will have experience in monitoring and managing warehousing, Logistic budgets and KPI’s identifying cost-saving opportunities and implementing strategies to reduce operational expenses

• Experienced in leading large scale commercial negotiations

• Comfortable with ambiguity

• A commercial mind, able to identify opportunities and articulate their financial impact to create powerful business cases

• Able to establish strong cross-functional working relationships as a basis for influencing and aligning plans

• Experience in leading large transformation programmes with a track record of implementing transformational change well

• Knowledge or experience within the grocery industry would be highly beneficial

• Ability to demonstrate a good understanding of E2E supply chains

• Assessing and mitigating risks that could impact multiple functions or the entire organisation. Creating and implementing risk management strategies and contingency plans

Benefits:

We believe in rewarding our Partners for their time and energy. After all, they’re the ones that make the John Lewis Partnership special.

Once you’ve been with us for three months, you’ll get:

• Partnership discount in store and online. That’s 25% off in John Lewis & Partners (12% off electrical products, some exclusions apply) and 20% in Waitrose & Partners (some exclusions apply) You’ll also be able to nominate someone you live with to share your discount.

• 30 Days Holiday

  • Christmas Extra Time

  • The ability to purchase 5 extra holiday days everyday year through our “Buying Holiday Scheme”

• Private Medical Care (Family cover Additional)

• As a Permanent Partner you will have access to our Care Allowance (Essential or Personal)

• Equal, Parental and Shared Parental leave

To find out more about our benefits, please visit our Benefits page: https://www.jlpjobs.com/about/benefits/

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At the John Lewis Partnership, we embrace our differences. We want you to be you. Because, well, we know you're at your best when you're free to be yourself.

Being a truly inclusive employer to us means creating an environment which celebrates your contribution, regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, social background, religion or belief. It's why we've set our own aim to become the UK’s most inclusive business - for our Partners (employees) and our customers.

We firmly believe that our future success lies in diversity of thought from all Partners and it's integral in our mission to build a happier world. ? ?

We welcome applications from everyone interested in working for us. And, once you're a Partner, your differences will make all the difference.

Find out more about D&I in the Partnership here.

We want all of our Partners to have a good work-life balance and we support flexible working. This might mean flexible or compressed hours, job sharing or shorter hour contracts, where it is possible to do so. Please discuss this further with the hiring manager during your interview.