Safeway Inc. Announces Enhancements to Marketing Organization
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Pleasanton, California – November 8, 2004 – Safeway Inc. announced an important step to enhance and strengthen its centralized marketing organization. As previously announced, the company completed the centralization process in 2002. Today, the company described its latest move as an “important step” in a fine tuning process that has been underway for several months.
Earlier this year, the company reorganized its perishables function to improve role clarity, increase focus on key perishables business groups and become more responsive to the needs of the company's customers and retail stores. Safeway will now separate the non-perishables side of marketing into five distinct business groups focused on driving sales across a band of naturally related product lines. These business groups (both perishables and non-perishables) will be supported by an Operations group managed by former Northern California Division President, Frank Calfas. Mr. Calfas will become President, Marketing Operations.
“These are important changes that will make our marketing units and general management structure even more responsive to the needs of our customers and retail stores and help drive identical store sales growth,” said Brian Cornell, Safeway's Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer. “The new organization will create a structure that will maximize the leverage of a centralized marketing unit, while keeping a healthy level of retail division flexibility and respecting regional differences in customer tastes and preferences.”
Each of the non-perishable business groups will have full financial accountability for sales, profit, promotion, and product strategy. The following are newly appointed Senior Vice Presidents and Business Group General Managers for the five functional groups. They will report to Mr. Cornell
Jim Lewis - Meals and Dry Grocery – Mr. Lewis is a 35-year Safeway veteran who has held a number of key marketing and procurement positions at the retail division and corporate level. He began his career in the company's Denver Division, and was most recently VP, Main Meal Grocery.
Henry Michon - Dairy, Refrigerated and Frozen Foods – Mr. Michon joined Safeway in 1993 after more than 30 years at Albertson's and Lucky Stores. Mr. Michon has managed the grocery merchandising and marketing operations function in Safeway's Northern California division. He was promoted to Vice President on the non-perishable marketing team at the company's corporate office in 2002.
David Lee - Beverages, Alcohol, Snacks and Tobacco – Mr. Lee came to Safeway from Vons where he worked his way through a number of retail and marketing positions. He managed various non-perishable units at Safeway since he joined the corporate team in 2000 before being promoted to Senior Vice President, non-perishables in March 2002.
David Fong - Health and Wellness (Pharmacy and HBC) – Mr. Fong spent most of his career with California based Longs Drugs, where he advanced to Group Vice President of Pharmacy Managed Care. He joined Safeway earlier this year with responsibility for Safeway's more than 1,300 pharmacies.
Bob Shelton - Home Care and General Merchandise – Mr. Shelton is also a Safeway retail and marketing veteran with more than 30 years experience. After working his way to the senior marketing position in the company's Phoenix Division, he was promoted to a VP position on the corporate non-perishable team in 2002.
Supporting these business groups will be the Marketing Operations team led by Mr. Calfas. He and his team will serve as a planning and coordination link between the centralized marketing organization and retail and will oversee all of the company's supply chain, category management, marketing and merchandising planning, strategic pricing and business process management. Mr. Calfas will be supported by:
Roger Lekberg – Senior Vice President, Supply Chain: Mr. Lekberg joined Safeway earlier this year from Rite Aid Corporation where he was Senior Vice President, Distribution and Logistics. Prior to that, he held senior distribution and logistics positions at Golden Books Publishing and Johnson & Johnson.
Carl Graziani – Senior Vice President, Marketing Planning: Mr.Graziani returned to Safeway earlier this year after a number of years in a range of food industry marketing positions. He brings more than 30 years of grocery industry experience that includes retail and CPG sales and marketing. During his previous Safeway tenure, Mr. Graziani worked his way through a number of retail and marketing positions including Grocery Merchandising Director in the company's Northern California Division. He left Safeway to take a senior marketing role with a leading U.S. food brokerage company.
Stuart Aitken – Group Vice President, Category & Card Marketing: Mr. Aitken joined Safeway in 1999 in the IT side of the business. He played a key role in establishing Safeway's loyalty card marketing capability. In 2000, Mr. Aitken was promoted to Director of Card & Loyalty Marketing. He was named Vice President of that unit in 2002.
About Safeway
Safeway Inc. is a Fortune 50 company and one of the largest food and drug retailers in North America based on sales. The company operates 1,815 stores in the United States and Canada and had annual sales of $35.6 billion in 2003. The company's common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol SWY.
SOURCE: Safeway Inc.