Dive Brief:

• Kroger announced on Tuesday that it has named Keith Shoemaker as president of its Dallas division. He formerly served as the vice president of operations for the division.
• Last week, Kroger named Lori Raya as president of its mid-Atlantic division. She formerly worked as chief merchandising and marketing officer at SpartanNash.
• The appointments cover two divisions that collectively oversee more than 200 stores in key competitive regions for the grocer.

Dive Insight:

Shoemaker’s appointment to the top of Kroger’s Dallas division follows the untimely death of the regional headquarters’ former head, Adam Wampler, earlier this month. Wampler, 48, had been in the role since 2020 and had a career that included leadership roles at Kroger’s Pacific Northwest division as well as at Albertsons. 

In his more than 44 years with Kroger, Shoemaker has served in leadership roles across the perishable and deli/bakery departments and has worked as a store manager, district manager and regional director of operations. He was named vice president of operations in the Fry’s division in 2012 and became its vice president of merchandising in 2015. Two years later, he joined the Dallas division as vice president of merchandising and in 2018 was named vice president of operations for the division. 

“We are confident [that] Keith’s infectious dedication to the company’s promise to be friendly and caring and uplift every way is a true extension of Adam’s legacy that the division team will continue to benefit from under his leadership,” Valerie Jabbar, senior vice president of retail divisions at Kroger, said in a statement. 

Raya, meanwhile, brings many years of experience outside of Kroger to her new role. She oversaw more than 275 stores as division president for Safeway’s Vons division from 2012 to 2015. Then she became Albertsons' division president, where she worked for three years before moving to her top-level role at SpartanNash in early 2019. That role lasted just over two years, and her departure from the retailer/wholesaler came at a time of significant executive turnover for the company. 

Raya succeeds Paula Ginnett as Kroger’s mid-Atlantic division president. The company recently promoted Ginnett to group president of retail operations in its corporate headquarters in Cincinnati. 

Both the Dallas and mid-Atlantic divisions are highly competitive regions that service growing populations. In Texas, stores have to contend with Albertsons’ evolving e-commerce business as well as Lone Star State favorite H-E-B, which recently announced it’s bringing stores under its main brand to the Dallas-Fort Worth area for the first time. In the mid-Atlantic region, Kroger faces a wide array of companies and store formats, including specialty stores and discounters.

Kroger has made a few other corporate-level changes this year. Earlier this month, it announced that Jabbar, formerly group vice president of center store merchandising, as its new senior vice president of retail divisions. Also this month, Kroger named Rob Quast as its new head of investor relations.