Yahoo Finance Former Tesco boss knighted after keeping shelves stocked during Covid crisis
The former boss of Tesco has been knighted after keeping the nation fed when Covid sparked a massive wave of panic buying.
Dave Lewis helped spearhead a race by supermarkets to keep shelves stocked when the crisis first hit. He also oversaw a turnaround of Tesco following a 2014 accounting scandal which prompted a £129m fine from the Serious Fraud Office.
Ocado retail chief executive Melanie Smith and Joanne Whitfield, the boss of Co-op Food, were made CBEs for services to the food supply chain during the chaos earlier this year.
Ms Smith, the boss of Ocado’s joint venture with M&S, recruited thousands of staff in 2020 to meet the soaring demand for home delivery when the nation was plunged into lockdown.
She said: “This award is for the whole of Ocado retail.
“As well as navigating the challenges of the pandemic, we also managed the biggest change to our range in two decades, with the launch of M&S at Ocado.”
Ms Whitfield praised the efforts of the Co-op’s staff.
She said: “They have worked tirelessly to keep shops open and stocked and also help food banks at a time of need,” she added.
Mr Lewis masterminded a revival of Tesco’s fortunes during a six-year stint where it bounced back from a £6.4bn loss in February 2015 to post a £551m profit for the six-months to September.
The 55-year-old, who was replaced by former Boots executive Ken Murphy in October, sparked a recovery by offloading part of Tesco’s overseas business, including operations in Poland and China.
Despite being nicknamed “Drastic Dave” for swingeing cost cuts early in his tenure, he created more than 16,000 jobs to help Tesco cope with pandemic pressure on its supply chain.
Meanwhile Robert Chote, the former chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), has been knighted for services to fiscal policy and the economy.
Mr Chote led the team overseeing the independent forecasts of the UK economy and public finances during the Budget and Spring Statements of the past decade.
The 52-year-old, who is married to the John Lewis Partners boss Dame Sharon White, spent eight years as a director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies before joining the OBR when it was created in 2010 by the then Chancellor George Osborne.
Elsewhere Nigel Newton, the founder of Harry Potter publisher Bloomsbury Publishing, and Emma Jones, the founder of the business support firm Enterprise Nation, were made CBEs.
