United Natural Foods, Inc. has onboarded Alexis (Lex) Josephs to serve in the newly created role of chief digital services officer, the company confirmed in an email to Grocery Dive.
“In this newly created role, Lex and her team will work to strengthen our digital services offerings and create more value for our customers and suppliers,” Louis Martin, the company’s president of conventional products and chief commercial officer, said in a statement.
Josephs’ grocery industry background includes just over two years as officer and general manager for Sam’s Club’s Member Access Platform and more than three years as chief revenue officer for Walmart Connect. Josephs has also held leadership roles for advisory and investing platform The Consello Group, NBCUniversal Media and Pinterest over the past decade, according to her LinkedIn page.
She also currently works as the founder and principal at consulting firm Plexus Advisory, per her LinkedIn profile.
Josephs noted that her career has primarily focused on building and scaling digital, retail media, data and commerce capabilities.
“I’m grateful to join the talented team at UNFI, who are focused on building and strengthening our digital services strategy and capabilities. The work underway to accelerate and expand these solutions is inspiring – and I’m energized to help shape what comes next,” Josephs wrote early this week in a LinkedIn post.
Josephs will report directly to Martin.
During UNFI’s Investor Day in December, the company noted it is focused on growing its professional and digital services.
“With many customers using an average of two to three services today, versus six for top users, the company sees significant opportunity for deeper adoption across its customer base,” UNFI wrote in a December press release following its Investor Day.
This appointment also comes less than a year after UNFI experienced a cyberattack that entirely shut down its online platform and forced the company to take down crucial online systems for several weeks.
