As JJ Fleeman gets ready to take over as CEO at Dollar General, he will soon leave Ahold Delhaize USA, where he has spent his entire three-plus-decade career and took over the helm of the grocery company’s stateside business in early 2023.
Under Fleeman, ADUSA made several internal moves, from promoting new C-suite executives to unifying omnichannel operations to improving banner performance.
Digital operations were already Fleeman’s bread and butter, so it’s no surprise that the U.S. division hit numerous omnichannel milestones in his three-year run as chief executive. But Fleeman also inherited the responsibility of righting Stop & Shop’s course, an effort further outside his comfort zone given his years as a Food Lion executive.
Here are three initiatives that defined Fleeman’s CEO reign at ADUSA.
Omnichannel evolution
Advancing Ahold Delhaize’s omnichannel strategy was a priority Fleeman carried over with him to the CEO role. His last role before assuming the helm of ADUSA was as the leader of the company’s Peapod Digital Labs, where he established a “strong omnichannel foundation,” Ahold Delhaize President and CEO Frans Muller said in a Tuesday statement.
Over the course of Fleeman’s time as CEO, ADUSA primarily worked to further unify omnichannel operations as well as make this part of the business profitable. Ahold Delhaize announced to investors in mid-2025 that the company achieved e-commerce profitability on a fully allocated basis in the first half of that year.
This milestone was quickly followed by Ahold Delhaize fully rolling out Prism, its proprietary digital and e-commerce platform, across its U.S. banners.
Prism launched during the company’s second quarter in 2023, less than six months after Fleeman transitioned out of Peapod Digital Labs and into the CEO role. The program’s stateside rollout — an initiative that lasted for Fleeman’s entire CEO tenure — finished late last year when Hannaford integrated it across its digital business.
Amid Prism’s U.S. adoption and Fleeman’s run as CEO, Ahold Delhaize fully parted ways with its Peapod brand, announcing in April 2024 that its Peapod Digital Labs and Retail Business Services would merge into a unified support group for Ahold Delhaize’s U.S. banners.
Stop & Shop’s improvements
Stop & Shop has long been a weight around ADUSA’s neck, and for nearly a decade, the banner and its parent company have been working to right its course. Remodeling efforts began in 2018 with updates to more than 20 locations in the Hartford, Connecticut, area and eventually spread to dozens of locations.
Fast-forward to 2024, slow progress on the remodels and an ultra-competitive Northeast market forced Stop & Shop to close more than 30 locations.
“The value proposition and pricing at Stop & Shop are simply not strong enough,” Fleeman said during Ahold Delhaize’s Strategy Day in May 2024.
In September of that year, then-Stop & Shop president Gordon Reid announced plans to retire, and Ahold Delhaize promoted Roger Wheeler as the chain’s new president. Fleeman said at the time of the leadership change that “it’s a strength of our organization that we have a depth of internal leadership talent, which will ensure a smooth transition.”
Despite these hiccups, Ahold Delhaize reported during its most recent earnings calls that Stop & Shop is seeing improvement. During the company’s final earnings call for fiscal 2025, it reported that Stop & Shop had posted positive comparable sales growth since April as a result of continued price investments and customer experience initiatives. The banner also remodeled 30 locations last year.
C-suite overhaul
In the three years Fleeman was CEO, ADUSA announced four C-suite level appointments.
The company named Ann Dozier as CIO in February 2025, shortly after a cyberattack that impacted Ahold Delhaize’s U.S. network. This attack caused temporary outages for Hannaford’s e-commerce services and wide out-of-stocks at Stop & Shop.
Ahold Delhaize announced dual C-suite appointments a few months later in April, naming Sanja Krajnovic as chief supply chain officer and Keither Nicks as chief commercial and digital officer. Both appointments were promotions, with Krajnovic formerly serving as executive vice president of distribution and transportation groups, and Nicks previously working as chief digital officer.
In June, Ahold Delhaize tapped Food Lion Vice President of Finance Jason Wilson to serve as ADUSA’s new chief financial officer.
Aside from Dozier, all of the C-suite appointments under Fleeman were internal promotions, following a theme that was all too familiar for Fleeman across his more than 36 years at the grocery company.
Catherine Douglas Moran contributed reporting to this story.
