Kroger Hires Walmart Turnaround Guy Greg Foran

With input from the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, CNBC, ABC News, Bloomberg.

Kroger just pulled the trigger on a major hire: former Walmart US boss Greg Foran is the grocer’s new CEO, announced Monday – roughly a year after Rodney McMullen was pushed out. Wall Street liked the move: Kroger shares popped about 6% in early trading.

If you want résumé highlights, Foran’s got them. He ran Walmart’s US operations from 2014 to 2019 and is widely credited with steadying the ship there – driving 20 straight quarters of comparable-store sales growth while ramping up things like online ordering and pickup. In other words, he’s the kind of operator investors hope can shore up store execution and speed up Kroger’s digital game.

Kroger’s been searching for a new captain since last March, when McMullen left after an internal probe into conduct the board said didn’t line up with company policy. Ronald Sargent, Kroger’s lead director and interim CEO, has been running the day-to-day while the hunt dragged on. Sargent will stay on as chairman to help with the handoff.

Why Foran? Pretty simple: credibility. Analysts say he brings instant operational chops and a track record of navigating big, messy retail businesses. Evercore’s Michael Montani summed it up: Kroger needed someone who’s proven they can turn around stores – and Foran did that at Walmart. Now the question is whether the fixes that worked at Walmart translate to Kroger’s messier, multi-banner setup.

That’s not a small caveat. Kroger isn’t a single, unified chain; it’s a portfolio of banners and formats across a highly competitive landscape. Morgan Stanley noted that Foran inherits a more complex footprint than the one he ran in Walmart’s heyday. The quick win for him will be tightening store operations. The tougher task: accelerating Kroger’s digital momentum so it can better compete with Walmart, Amazon and other players muscling into groceries.

Kroger’s facing pressure on a few fronts – consumer spending is picky these days, and the company recently trimmed its annual sales outlook as shoppers trade down or tighten budgets. Adding to the challenge is the growing threat from rivals that mix low prices with big assortment and tech-driven convenience. Foran’s background in marrying brick-and-mortar fixes with digital options is exactly why the board tapped him.

For Kroger employees and loyal customers, the hope is practical: crisper shelves, faster checkout lines, better online fulfillment and smarter tech behind the scenes. For investors, the short-term payoff was obvious: the stock pop. Foran’s bigger test starts now – translating Walmart-style playbooks into Kroger’s ecosystem, and doing it without losing the local flavor that sometimes protects grocery chains from being pure price wars.

Kroger didn’t choose a flashy outsider. It picked a known retail fixer. Whether Greg Foran becomes the architect of Kroger’s next chapter – or just a steady hand while the industry keeps shifting under everyone’s feet – will play out in aisles, apps and quarterly reports.