Stuart Rose Quotes

#1. When I got married in my twenties, I had a happy marriage and happy kids but at some point in time I let it go off the rails; I let it go off the rails.

Stuart Rose

#2. Was I the best husband? No. And I regret it.

Stuart Rose

#3. We face a dilemma because although everybody is better off than they've ever been at any time in our history, we've also got the biggest gap between the rich and the poor that we've ever had, and we've potentially got a planet which is going to go bust any day.

Stuart Rose

#4. I am absolutely a free marketeer and I believe the creation of wealth is a good thing and anyone who doesn't really needs to have their head examined - otherwise where are we going to get the schools, the roads, the universities, the third runway, dare I say it?

Stuart Rose

#5. It's P for Progress not R for Recovery.

Stuart Rose

#6. We've got a bit of growth a bit earlier than expected.

Stuart Rose

#7. I want to please every woman, every time.

Stuart Rose

#8. I believe in a uniform for work, but why, because we're men, do we have to be ghettoised into grey suits?

Stuart Rose

#9. Customers want good value, but they care more than ever how food and clothing products are made.

Stuart Rose

#10. Ultimately, growth is essential for increasing a company's value.

Stuart Rose

#11. I was the chief executive once, I've been there. My recommendation to anybody is don't go backwards.

Stuart Rose

#12. I don't believe in retirement.

Stuart Rose

#13. We believe responsible business can be profitable business

Stuart Rose

#14. My four criteria: I don't want to work with people I don't like; I don't want to work in a business I either don't like or don't understand; I don't want to work for nothing unless I choose to, and I do a fair amount of that already; and I want to have some fun.

Stuart Rose

#15. There's no abhorrence about wearing M&S. We just haven't been delighting the girls.

Stuart Rose

#16. If you wait for customers to tell you that you need to do something, you're too late. Good business leaders should be half a step ahead of what customers want, i.e. they don't actually quite know they want it. That's what innovation's about. With Plan A, we didn't wait for the consumers to tell us.

Stuart Rose

#17. There is a responsibility on all companies to look at the quantum of pay and the relationship between the top and the bottom.

Stuart Rose

#18. I've been an employee all my life. Would I wish, if I could rewind it, to have gone down a different route? Possibly, but I've had a great time. Anyway I'm not ruling it out; I could still buy a business.

Stuart Rose

#19. I think that business leaders today have to be more rounded than they used to be, they have to be completely multi-functional and fast-moving.

Stuart Rose

#20. Most employees want to be involved in a successful business and most employees are happy for people running successful businesses to be paid a reasonable wage and a market rate for it, provided they understand the reason. What they hate most of all is pay for failure.

Stuart Rose

#21. I have always been an advocate and was, in my last job at M&S, a supporter of the Al Gore dictum that a sustainable business can be a profitable business. We were the first sizeable company in the U.K. to prove that was the case.

Stuart Rose

#22. Our world is moving at an ever-accelerating pace, and with the advent of social media, what happens in New York now can be reported across the globe 60 seconds later.

Stuart Rose

#23. As retail goes through a fundamental shift into the digital world, I believe Ocado's model and the high standards of customer service it provides will see it emerge as a powerful online player.

Stuart Rose

#24. If you are not online, people look at you askance. I think in three to four years' time people will look equally askance at you if you haven't got the ability for consumers to buy what they want, where they want and how they want.

Stuart Rose

#25. I'd go mad if I didn't have things to make me laugh.

Stuart Rose

#26. I think fashion is the best value way, the most affordable way in the 21st century, that men and women can express their personality.

Stuart Rose