Stuart Rose
Stuart Rose
Stuart Alan Ransom Rose, Baron Rose of Monewdenis an English businessman, who was the executive chairman of the British retailer Marks & Spencer. Following the appointment of Marc Bolland in May 2010, Rose stepped down as executive chairman at the end of July 2010 and remained as chairman until early 2011 when he was replaced by Robert Swannell. He was knighted in 2008 for his services to the retail industry, and created a Conservative Life Peer on 17 September 2014,...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth17 March 1949
If you are not online, people look at you askance. I think in three to four years' time people will look equally askance at you if you haven't got the ability for consumers to buy what they want, where they want and how they want.
Most employees want to be involved in a successful business and most employees are happy for people running successful businesses to be paid a reasonable wage and a market rate for it, provided they understand the reason. What they hate most of all is pay for failure.
My four criteria: I don't want to work with people I don't like; I don't want to work in a business I either don't like or don't understand; I don't want to work for nothing unless I choose to, and I do a fair amount of that already; and I want to have some fun.
Our world is moving at an ever-accelerating pace, and with the advent of social media, what happens in New York now can be reported across the globe 60 seconds later.
We face a dilemma because although everybody is better off than they've ever been at any time in our history, we've also got the biggest gap between the rich and the poor that we've ever had, and we've potentially got a planet which is going to go bust any day.
There's no abhorrence about wearing M&S. We just haven't been delighting the girls.
It's P for Progress not R for Recovery.
I have always been an advocate and was, in my last job at M&S, a supporter of the Al Gore dictum that a sustainable business can be a profitable business. We were the first sizeable company in the UK to prove that was the case.
Ultimately, growth is essential for increasing a company's value.
I believe in a uniform for work, but why, because we're men, do we have to be ghettoised into grey suits?
There is a responsibility on all companies to look at the quantum of pay and the relationship between the top and the bottom.
We've got a bit of growth a bit earlier than expected.
I actually think the whole concept of retirement is a bit stupid, so yes, I do want to do something else. There is this strange thing that just because chronologically on a Friday night you have reached a certain age... with all that experience, how can it be that on a Monday morning, you are useless?
I don't believe in retirement.