Ahold USA earlier this month announced that it has hired Tonya Herring as senior VP-non-perishable merchandising. She will join AUSA veteran Jeff Dichele in that role as the Carlisle, PA-based retailer seeks to become a “world class merchandising department,” according to Mark McGowan, executive VP-merchandising, whom both Dichele and Herring will report to.
“As previously announced, we increased the number of portfolios to get closer to market and customer needs, McGowan stated in an internal announcement. “As part of that plan, we are further re-organizing the non-perishable category into two leadership streams to ensure our continued success.
Herring, who will be based in Carlisle, comes to Ahold USA from Safeway where she spent her entire 23 career. She began her career at Safeway as a deli department manager and steadily progressed into multi-unit roles such as district field merchandiser, project manager, and manager division operations. Herring worked in corporate merchandising and marketing as director division merchandising, director category management, regional director, and group director of marketing. Most recently, she was the VP-category development consumer brands. In this role she had end-to-end responsibility for perishable strategy including financial goals, product development, merchandising, pricing, and execution.
“Tonya brings a strong balance of operations, marketing and merchandising that blends well with our team. She possesses strong leadership, industry knowledge, entrepreneurial spirit and most importantly, a real passion for the business. I’m confident that Jeff and Tonya will work together to lead us to success as we build our world class merchandising department, McGowan proclaimed.
As part of the restructuring, there will be some changes as to direct reports. Continuing to report to Dichele will be portfolio leads: Tara Ponnett (warehouse beverage, main meals and enhancers); Lee Nicholson (baking, breakfast and candy); Denise Mullen (beverage, rewards, beer/wine and commercial bakery); Natalia Torres-Furtado (ethnic and specialty); and Maria Ruisi (natural and organic). Dichele will also continue to oversee Sal Marrocco (Peapod project) and Kyle Kirkpatrick (director negotiation strategy)
Portfolio leads now reporting to Herring are: Jim Wonderly (general merchandise); Ken Kehres (fuel); Todd Patti (dairy) and Sean Maurer (frozen).
While McGowan continues to supervise all merchandising activity for the Northeast’s largest supermarket chain, the search continues for his replacement. Once a new executive VP-merchandising is found, McGowan will shift full-time to his new post as executive VP-operations.
