Statement of intent for Black History Month 2025

At the John Lewis Partnership we’re committed to supporting and encouraging our Black Partners to proudly be themselves. We’re constantly challenging ourselves to understand what more we can do and it runs through everything we do. It’s more than just lip service; ‘Inclusion and Belonging' is a key metric in our business scorecard, demonstrating our dedication to this throughout the year.

Black History Month is an opportune time to highlight our ongoing efforts across the Partnership. Helping to amplify the voices of our Black Partners and ensure our Black customers feel represented.

Recent highlights include:

• Kurl Kitchen pop-up at John Lewis Stratford earlier this year, featuring products for curly hair made from West African kitchens. 
• The launch of Fenty Beauty by Rihanna at John Lewis in August 2025, offering a diverse range of make-up, skincare, and hair products.
• Influencer collaborations on John Lewis's social media to reflect our diverse customer base, including Hermon & Heroda (@being_her), Michaela (@yhkayla), Luena Gama (@luenagamaa), Medina Grillo (grillodesigns), and Michele (@melaninmichie).
• Diverse voices on the Waitrose Dish podcast, featuring the likes of Cynthia Erivo, Neneh Cherry, Gregory Porter, Billy Porter, Judi Love, and Lashana Lynch.
• Growth of the UNITY Network, our internal Partnership Network for ethnically diverse Partners and allies. Providing a safe space to share experiences and ensuring voices are heard at senior levels through our democratic channels. UNITY also brought back its Black History Month exhibition for a fifth year in 2024, which toured various Partnership locations. They’ve been shortlisted for a 'Network Group' award at the Ethnicity Awards.
• John Lewis Leicester's Special Events Award win at the inaugural Pukaar Group Black History Month Awards in November 2024. This was after a month of activities which included exhibitions and professional artists who performed in the store to support the Black History programme.
• Sponsorship of the UK Black Business Show in October 2024, showcasing career opportunities and offering advice.
• Partnership with The Pros Collective (formerly BME Pros) in July. This was set up to support Black, Asian, Mixed Race and Ethnic Minority people working in communications. The Pros Collective hosts annual awards, with John Lewis sponsoring 'Creator of the Year' and Waitrose sponsoring 'Internal Comms Pro of the Year' at the ceremony in September.
• Launch of the 'Elevate' progression programme in September 2024, a 12-month pilot to increase representation of ethnically diverse Partners in senior leadership. Following feedback, we’re currently exploring further opportunities for Partners to embed the learning and increase their exposure across the business.
• Launch of allyship learning programme in August 2024 to support Partners in becoming effective allies, with over 600 completions so far. We’re also defining inclusive leadership within the Partnership, how this is linked to our existing Behaviors and what accountability looks like.

While we've made significant progress, we acknowledge there's still more to do. This Black History Month, we support the theme 'Standing Firm in Power and Pride', believing we’re at our best when we are free to be ourselves, embracing all our wonderful differences.