Dive Brief:
- Ahold Delhaize’s supervisory board has nominated Claire Peters to be CEO of Ahold Delhaize USA, effective Sept. 8, the grocery company announced Thursday.
- Peters most recently served as Amazon’s vice president for worldwide fresh, overseeing both the North American and international business. She previously worked for Australian grocer Woolworths Group and held several leadership roles at Tesco in the United Kingdom and in Thailand.
- If her nomination is approved at a shareholder meeting later this year, Peters will succeed JJ Fleeman, who will depart from ADUSA at the end of this month and become Dollar General’s CEO at the start of next year.
Dive Insight:
Peters marks the latest company outsider set to join Ahold Delhaize as a chief executive officer. In early May, the grocery company’s board nominated Thierry Garnier, current CEO of an international home improvement company, to succeed Frans Muller as Ahold Delhaize’s CEO, effective in April 2027.
Like Garnier, Peters brings a wealth of international grocery and retail knowledge. While serving as Amazon’s vice president for worldwide fresh for two years, Peters directed the company’s global grocery portfolio across six countries and was charged with integrating online and physical formats to improve Prime engagement, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Before Amazon, she spent six years at Woolworths, where she worked as managing director of its supermarkets business and then as managing director of B2B and everyday needs for Woolworths Group.
Peters’ career began at Tesco, where she worked for more than two decades. She started as a retail graduate in the late 1990s and rose through the ranks to become chief operating officer of the grocery business in Bangkok, Thailand.
“Claire brings strong operational leadership and deep experience in omnichannel grocery and business transformation,” Muller said in a statement. “She has led businesses of significant scale across several markets, with full accountability for performance, customer proposition and execution. Her combination of strategic insight, customer focus and people-first leadership makes her very well positioned to lead Ahold Delhaize USA into its next chapter.”
Peters will helm an ADUSA that continues to report strong e-commerce sales and has a private brands portfolio that outpaces the rest of the store in sales and volume, per Ahold Delhaize’s latest earnings report. She will also take on Stop & Shop’s remodeling and price investment program and continue to carry on Ahold Delhaize’s Growing Together strategy.
