Described as a “thoughtful”, “measured”, “weighted” and “balanced” man by those close to him, John Allan revealed a dark part of his personality. This logistics expert is indeed targeted for inappropriate behavior and “sexual assault” on several of his colleagues. The chairman of the board of directors of the British supermarket giant Tesco will step down at the group’s general meeting on June 16.
Last week, The Guardian reported that 74-year-old John Allan allegedly touched the buttocks of a Tesco executive in June 2022 during a general meeting. And the facts don’t stop there. When he was president of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), in 2018 and 2019, he also allegedly touched the buttocks of a member of staff at the 2019 annual dinner. John Allan also allegedly made inappropriate remarks towards two women, considered sexual harassment.
For his part, the septuagenarian admitted, in half a word, to having had an inappropriate comment in 2019. He would have told Carolyn Fairbair, then director general of the CBI, that her dress “suited her figure”. And this, only “to cheer him up”, according to his words. According to a spokesman for John Allan, he “immediately apologised” and said the other three charges were “simply untrue”.
Faced with this situation, the property developer Barratt has also decided to take action. The largest homebuilder in the UK, called on his services in 2014 and appointed him chairman. He will be removed from office, “as of June 30” next. The company wants to “avoid the impact of the allegations against John Allan disrupting society”. “My early departure from Barrat is the result of anonymous and unfounded allegations made against me, which I vehemently deny,” the businessman defended in a statement published in the British press on Tuesday. .
John Allen’s professional career had not known any pitfalls. After graduating in mathematics from the University of Edinburgh in 1970, he quickly rose through the ranks. He became managing director of Exel, a supply and logistics chain, in 2000, then financial director of the parcel delivery company Deutsche Post DHL Group, in 2007. A year earlier, he even received the Order of the British Empire for services rendered to the transport of goods.
In 2009, John Allan became vice-chairman of retailer Dixons Carphone and told the Mail on Sunday that it “is not the job of the chairman and members of the board to run the business, but to ensure that it is well managed, within the framework of good governance”. According to a statement from one of his colleagues to the Financial Times, “he knows how to talk to senior officials and they listen to him.”
In February 2011, he became closer to the British crown when Home Secretary Theresa May invited him to join her ministry. John Allan then becomes a non-executive member of its supervisory board, with the aim of contributing his commercial expertise. A few years later, in 2014, he took care of the merger between Dixons and Carphone Warehouse, for an amount of more than 3.8 billion pounds, or 4.6 billion euros. Since he joined Dixons, the share price has quadrupled, reinforcing his strong results.
He arrived in 2015 at the head of Tesco, one of the most important British retail groups. According to information from the Guardian, John Allen would have been paid 650,000 pounds a year for his role on the company’s board of directors. And so he was also appointed president of the CBI in 2018 and 2019, then vice-president until October 2021, when he resigned, for no apparent reason.
Beyond his professional career, John Allan does not dwell on his private life. He has done very few media interviews and only speaks on rare occasions. In an article in the Financial Times dating from 2011, the manager specified, however, that he frequently made trips to Scandinavia to supervise the activities of Dixons. During his travels, he thus acquired a taste for black Scandinavian novels and series, which reveal the dark underpinnings of contemporary society, such as murder, racism, rape or even misogyny.