Dive Brief:
- Kroger announced Tuesday that Nate Faust will become its executive vice president and chief e-commerce officer on Sept. 1.
- Faust brings extensive e-commerce experience to the role, including co-founding Jet.com and serving as senior vice president of Walmart’s e-commerce supply chain. He recently helped start Olive, a sustainable e-commerce logistics company.
- Faust’s hiring marks another instance of Kroger naming someone from outside the company to a key role and comes just a few months after Greg Foran, another Walmart veteran, became the grocer’s CEO.
Dive Insight:
Faust is joining Kroger at a time when the grocery company aims to sharpen its e-commerce operations as a key part of its business improvement strategy.
Kroger is among the bevy of grocers that have seen their comps take a hit this year from weakened pharmacy sales due to impacts from the Inflation Reduction Act and declining egg prices, but e-commerce remains a bright spot.
While Kroger’s identical store sales growth has slowed for the last four consecutive quarters, the grocer’s online sales have brought in double-digit growth. For its most recent quarter, Kroger said that its e-commerce operations turned a profit for the first time. During that quarter, Kroger recorded 19% year-over-year growth in its online sales, led by delivery, and attracted a record number of new households to its e-commerce business, Foran told investors during an earnings call in June.
During that call, Foran said that Kroger needs more consistent execution in online shopping, noting that e-commerce “powers” the company’s high-margin retail media business. Kroger made a big bet on automated online fulfillment centers when it partnered with British tech company Ocado, but it recently scaled back that project and has focused more recently on store-based fulfillment as well as its membership program, Boost.
“Most of the growth in grocery today is happening online,” Foran said on the call. “That’s where the customer is moving, and that’s where we have to lead.”
In the announcement on Faust’s hire, Kroger noted that he brings more than two decades of experience “building and scaling highly impactful eCommerce businesses.” In addition to his time at Jet.com and Walmart, Faust’s resume includes serving as an executive of Diapers.com, which Amazon bought in 2010 when it purchased parent company Quidsi.
“Nate built businesses that redefined what customers expect from eCommerce, built on speed, value and the experience of getting exactly what the customer ordered," Foran said in a statement. “That is the standard we are holding ourselves to as we grow our digital business. I am thrilled to welcome Nate to the team.”
Faust’s time at Walmart overlapped with Foran, who was president and CEO of Walmart U.S. from 2014 to 2019.
Faust marks the latest C-suite change at Kroger since Foran joined the company in February. Kroger named a new chief people officer last month and in March tapped Milen Mahadevan, formerly president of its 84.51° analytics unit, to serve as the grocer’s chief data and AI officer. Tim Massa, Kroger’s executive vice president and chief associate experience officer, plans to retire from the company on Sept. 18.
