Stuart Rose

Stuart Alan Ransom Rose, Baron Rose of Monewden (born 17 March 1949) is an English businessman, who was the executive chairman of the British retailer Marks & Spencer. Following the appointment of Marc Bolland in May 2010, Rose stepped down as executive chairman at the end of July 2010 and remained as chairman until early 2011 when he was replaced by Robert Swannell. He was knighted in 2008 for his services to the retail industry, and created a Life Peer on 17 September 2014, taking the title Baron Rose of Monewden, of Monewden in the County of Suffolk .

Early life

Rose's grandparents were White Russian émigrés who fled to China after the 1917 revolution. Their son, Rose's father, was unofficially adopted by an English Quaker spinster, who offered to take him to safety in England as war loomed. The original family name was Bryantzeff, which Rose's father, ex-RAF and civil servant, changed. His mother's side is English, Scottish and Greek. The young family lived in a caravan in Warwickshire until Rose senior obtained a posting with the Imperial Civil Service in Tanganyika (now Tanzania). Rose went to the Roman Catholic St Joseph's Convent School in Dar es Salaam until he was 11. When he was 13 years old his family returned to England and his parents sent him to Bootham School, an independent Quaker boarding school in York. His first job was as an administration assistant at the BBC.

Stuart Rose (designer)

Thomas Stuart Rose (London, 2 October 1911 – 10 September 1993, Coggeshall)CBE was the first Design Director to the British Post Office 1968-76. In 1974 he was awarded the Phillips Gold Medal for stamp design and was appointed CBE the same year.

Early life

Rose was born in London to Scottish parents. He was educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford, and then at the LCC Central School of Arts and Crafts.

Career

He first worked under Ashley Havinden at the leading advertising agency Crawfords and later under Sir Francis Meynell.

After World War II he was Editor of Design magazine and in the 1960s an associate of the Design Research Unit, President of the Society of Industrial Artists and Designers (1963), Governor of the Central School of Art and Design (1965-74) and member of the FBI Industrial Design Committee until 1965 (Chairman 1965-68).

He was a member of the Council of Industrial Design Stamp Advisory Committee (1960-62), and of the Post Office Stamp Advisory Panel (1968-76). He replaced Francis Meynell as Typographical Adviser to the Postmaster General in 1962 and became the first Design Director at the Post Office in 1968, which post he held until his retirement in 1976.