There’s a sense of stewardship and responsibility that you get taking on a brand like this. I spoke with my predecessor about it and said, ‘You’ve been here for a long time’. He replied, ‘Well we launched in 1707, so not really, actually, in the great scheme of things.’ There’s a responsibility that comes with this business. Fundamentally, I want to hand it on in better shape than I’ve taken it on.
Not every opportunity is a good opportunity. We must think about the things that we want to do [in our career] which offer opportunities to grow. This is the job I always wanted. So when Fortnum & Mason called, I didn’t have to think twice. In fact, I made it very clear on that first call that I felt as if everything I’d been doing up until now pointed towards this.
The advice from my mother was, ‘don’t, for God’s sake, change anything’. Lots of people said that to me. I think what they were really saying, was ‘just be careful with it’. We recognise that the business needs to modernise. In fact, one of the reasons Fortnums has been around for 315 years is because it has modernised — and probably been ahead of the curve — in a way that doesn’t feel jarring.
Often, in business, you instinctively know the answer to a question but being able to describe why you’re making that decision is what takes the time. On my first morning in charge, we were just going into the third lockdown, with 60 per cent of our team either ill or self-isolating. I decided I’d give myself 20 minutes to make the decision whether to shut. In the end we kept the shop open on a limited basis and our teams were brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I’m so pleased we did that.
Operating in a world where the rules go out of the window has been amazing. We’ve seen many of our people thrive in that environment. It’s taught us that as we think about hiring and go through the interview process, focusing on finding people with great aptitude and judgment goes a long way. [Those are] the things you can’t teach. Ultimately, we’re a business where the product has to be amazing, but alongside that you’ve got to have unparalleled service and that comes from people with great judgement.
Each floor at Fortnum & Mason needs to be a destination in its own right. We’ll be opening a production kitchen on the third floor this year which will offer experiential food retail — live, unscripted food drama! We’ll be holding cooking lessons and then upload that content onto our website so people can join in from around the world. It’ll be an event space that’ll also feel like an authentic part of the shop.
No one wants a first-class ticket to somewhere they don’t want to go. People say to me, ‘You’ll never get customers up to the third floor without escalators', but we’ve got one of the world’s finest tea rooms on the fourth floor which is consistently overbooked, and nobody has trouble climbing the stairs for that. In a store like this, you can put escalators in, but you need a proposition that people want to visit.
Fortnums is not for everyone, but we are for anyone. The interesting thing about Fortnums is that, yes, we’re a luxury business, but our average item price is £12. Not everyone can afford Valentino dresses, but they could treat themselves to a jar of special jam or honey.
The Fortnums brand is about making joy. Think product mastery, heritage crafts, artisan food and world class storytelling, combined with the eccentricity that comes from being British and modern values around sustainability, openness, and inclusiveness.
Championing British products is hugely important to us but I want Fortnums to be about extraordinary food, not just British food. There’s a lot more that Britain can offer though, and the corollary to this is having sustainability running through everything that we’re doing.
Getting closer to our food producers is important. That’s where the idea for our pop-up restaurant FIELD came from. We focused on suppliers doing something fundamental with the way in which they rear their livestock, farm their land or take fish from the sea. Regenerative agriculture is something we feel very strongly about – and we know it’s important to our customers too.
I want to make sure Fortnum & Mason responds to our customers’ needs in a sustainable way. Equally, I never want customers to feel there is somehow a trade-off between something sustainable and something delicious or beautiful.
All the things we’ve missed so much over the last 20 months lend themselves to what Fortnums is trying to do. Whether it’s retail, hospitality or online, it all comes together around a core of extraordinary food. There’s something about the conviviality that comes with food which actually makes Fortnums a totally joyous place to work. Our overarching purpose is this idea that we make joy. I find that very inspiring.
If I did a trolley dash round Fortnum & Mason I’d grab chilli and fennel sausages from the meat counter, a pork pie — I’m obsessed with them — a Gingerlossus biscuit, some truffle mayonnaise and a Feldspar teapot.
In another life, I’d have been the lead guitarist of The Smiths. Johnny Marr is lucky that I wasn’t any good at guitar!
To become the leader of an iconic brand get properly stuck in, whatever you do. Ask loads of questions, be curious and don’t accept the status quo. And finally — and this is something I learnt when I was Waitrose CFO in my mid-30s — be kind to people and show humility. If you do all these things, you'll find that you’ll bob to the surface like a cork.
Would you like to see your pudding creation served up at celebrations up and down the country? Fortnum & Mason is inviting you to invent the Jubilee Pudding for The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee later this year. Enter before 4 February 2022 at fortnumandmason.com
