Business Career
Throughout his life, John James avoided personal publicity and little evidence remains of his character. His business style was to offer competitive prices while, at the same time, demonstrating higher standards of quality, service, and hygiene.
From one store in Holborn, London, opened at 173 Drury Lane in 1869, Sainsbury built a chain of grocery stores which numbered 128 when he died in 1928. Sainsbury's remained a family business during his whole life. At the time of the firm's incorporation in 1922, John James took on the title of Chairman and Governing Director, a position which he held until his death in 1928. His last words were "Keep the shops well lit".
Today, the group owns over 1,000 stores but no family member has been involved in management since David Sainsbury retired in 1998. They do, however, continue to control approximately 15% of the shares.
Read more about this topic: John James Sainsbury
Famous quotes containing the words business and/or career:
“Knighterrantry is a most chuckleheaded trade, and it is tedious hard work, too, but I begin to see that there is money in it, after all, if you have luck. Not that I would ever engage in it, as a business, for I wouldn’t. No sound and legitimate business can be established on a basis of speculation. A successful whirl in the knighterrantry line—now what is it when you blow away the nonsense and come down to the cold facts? It’s just a corner in pork, that’s all.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“A black boxer’s career is the perfect metaphor for the career of a black male. Every day is like being in the gym, sparring with impersonal opponents as one faces the rudeness and hostility that a black male must confront in the United States, where he is the object of both fear and fascination.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)