DIRECTOR AT 30

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 17854, 29 October 1929, Page 11

DIRECTOR AT 30

GIVING YOUTH A CHANCE. The rapid rise of Mr Henry Chowins, who at 30 years of age is a director of the great new Damage Store in Oxford Street, London, which is to be opened shortly, strikingly shows the opportunities open to young men of imagination. Less than 12 years ago Mr Chowins took his first job in a department store at £2 a week. He said to a Daily Mail reporter:— I was a Regular Army officer and should have been in the army still had I not been wounded in the war. In 1918 I joined a big department store. At flrst the work was un'congenial, hut in a few months I realised the enormous possibilities.

Five years later I was appointed merchandise manager of Swan and Edgar, going from there to the Selfridge organisation, where I became merchandise manager of Whiteley’s

I believe my experience proves that young men just out of school have gioat opportunities in business, and particularly in retail distribution. T am never more irritated than when I hear that young men arc not given jobs because they have not been in business a sufficient number of years. Personality, 'by which I mean the gift of placing one’s seif in the other man’s shoes and of getting the best out of everybody, seems to be so much more important than the age-old qualifications of having "slept under the counter" or "brushed the pavement" at some unearthly hour in the morning. It has been found frequently in our business that young people of intelligence with no technical knowledge can develop and improve departments which have previously been handled by people whose only qualification was many years in the trade.