2023 was an active year for food retail and wholesale company CEOs, as some longtime industry leaders stepped down from their roles and new replacements stepped in.
Publix Super Markets, Costco Wholesale Corp., Walgreens, Trader Joe’s, Save A Lot, Gelson’s, Loblaw, C&S Wholesale Grocers, and KeHE Foods all named new CEOs during the past year. A handful of other companies, including Associated Wholesale Grocers, Grocery Outlet, and Ahold Delhaize USA, announced CEO changes late last year, with the new CEO starting early in 2023.
In many cases, these changes occurred because legacy leaders reached retirement age or were at a point where the next logical step was to transition to chairmanship, said Jose Tamez, managing partner at executive search firm Austin-Michael. In other cases, the changes were a result of further integration of a previous merger, or a continued evolution of a company, often related to the next growth phase, he said.
“In either case, what’s clear is that companies have become more nimble in this space due to market conditions, and this alone can prompt executive changes at the top,” Tamez said.
Many of the changes occurred at companies that have been performing well and growing at a rapid pace. Publix, for example, which has long been among the industry leaders in sales growth, announced in November that Kevin Murphy would succeed Todd Jones as CEO, effective Jan. 1, 2024. Jones, who started his career with Publix in 1980 and has been CEO since 2016, will transition to become executive chairman.
Likewise, Costco is also undergoing an orderly CEO transition, with CEO Craig Jelinek planning to step down at the end of 2023 as part of what the company said was a longstanding succession plan. Succeeding Jelinek will be Ron Vachris, who began his career with Costco as a forklift operator at Costco 40 years ago and is currently chief operating officer. Jelinek had succeeded Costco’s founder, James Sinegal, as CEO in 2012.
Trader Joe’s, another industry leader in terms of sales growth, also appeared to undergo an orderly CEO transition as longtime CEO Dan Bane announced his retirement after 22 years as chairman and CEO. He was succeeded by Bryan Palbaum, a 20-year company veteran who had been president and chief operating officer for the past 10 years.
Other CEO transitions were a bit more complicated, such as the departure of Roz Brewer as CEO of Walgreens in September as the retailer’s performance deteriorated and amid a wave of other executive transitions. After a brief interim CEO stepped in from the board, the company hired Tim Wentworth, a veteran of global health services giant Cigna as its new CEO in October.
Save A Lot, meanwhile, said longtime industry veteran Leon Bergmann resigned as CEO in November for personal reasons, after less than two years in the position. After a brief stint as interim CEO, Fred Boehler, another longtime industry veteran with extensive supply chain experience, was officially named CEO in December. Bergmann had taken over following the company’s transition into a wholesale-focused operating model after it transferred ownership of all of its stores to local operators.
Among the other new CEOs appointed in 2023:
- At C&S Wholesale Grocers, 20-year company veteran Eric Winn was named to succeed Bob Palmer as CEO, effective in 2024. The move comes as C&S prepares to acquire 413 stores from Kroger and Albertsons to satisfy potential antitrust concerns as part of their planned merger in 2024
- At Loblaw Cos., the company went outside its ranks to hire longtime European food retailing executive Per Bank as CEO, succeeding Galen Weston, who will remain chairman and CEO of Loblaw’s parent company. The move came as Canadian regulators grilled grocery CEOs about shelf prices, but the company said a transition and search for the new CEO had long been in the works
- At Gelson’s Markets, CEO Rob McDougall stepped down, and John Bagan, who had been president, took on the additional role of CEO. In 2021, Gelson’s was acquired by Pan Pacific International Holdings, which also operates Japanese retailers Don Quijote and Marukai Corp.
- At KeHE, longtime president and CEO Brandon Barholt retired from those roles to become executive chairman, and was succeeded in April by KeHE board member Deb Conklin, the former president and CEO of Reddy Ice
