Loblaw has named Danish retail executive Per Bank to be its president and CEO starting next year, replacing Galen Weston in the top job at the company.
The company announced the news in a media release on Tuesday morning.
Bank is currently CEO of Danish retail chain Salling Group A/S, which runs more than 1,700 supermarkets across three countries in Europe.
Loblaw says the leadership transition was planned in advance, and part of a “global talent search” that began in August of last year, when chief operating officer Robert Sawyer announced he was stepping down.
“It comes after two years of superb performance at the company as it executed against a strategy anchored in retail excellence,” Loblaw said.
“Per is an exceptional executive with a decades-long track record of delivering retail excellence and successful growth — enabling a smooth transition for our teams,” Weston said in the release.
Weston has been president of Loblaw since 2021, when Sarah Davis retired from the job. He never assumed the CEO title, which remained vacant.
While he will no longer be president of Loblaw, Weston will remain chair of the company’s board, as well as CEO of Loblaw’s parent company, George Weston Ltd.
Loblaw says Weston “will play an active role setting the strategy for the group” in his role as chair of the company.
“I’m not leaving. I’m stepping back into what I consider to be my natural role as controlling shareholder,” Weston told financial analysts on a conference call to discuss the announcement on Tuesday morning, adding that Bank is the ideal choice to be Loblaws CEO because of his experience.
“He has extensive experience working for a controlling family and understands what that relationship needs to be in order for a partnership to be successful,” Weston said.
Contentious year
While Weston will maintain a key role at the company, it may well bring an end to his time as the commercial spokesperson and the senior executive at the company, which has faced the ire of consumers this year amid surging food prices.
Weston was one of a number of grocery chain CEOs grilled by lawmakers last month over competition in the food industry.
The CEOs of Canada’s biggest grocery chains faced pointed questions on Parliament Hill about soaring profits and food inflation, but all denied that corporate earnings were behind rising food prices.
Megan Mathews, co-founder of the marketing agency Instinct Brand Equity in Mississauga, Ont., says the Loblaws brand name has taken a hit in recent months because of the association with one of Canada’s wealthiest families at a time when average families were struggling to pay their food bills.
Keeping Weston as the face of the company “could damage the brand even further than some of the damage that’s already occurred in the last few months,” she told CBC News.
“Galen just isn’t the right person to be delivering that value message,” she said, adding that Loblaw’s No Frills and President’s Choice brand names are very well regarded with consumers, with or without him.
“I think they will do better without him as the face,” she said. “Consumers are really savvy. I think we probably all know that Galen isn’t sitting around a table trying the chocolate chip cookies, trying the Singapore sauce in order to say ‘OK, this is my choice’,” she said.
Marvin Ryder, who teaches entrepreneurship and marketing at DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University, says Weston had become the whipping boy of the food price crisis because of his enormous personal wealth and high profile.
“I understand where people are coming from, they all want to point a finger at somebody,” he said. “When you’re the CEO, the buck stops there, but I’m not sure it’s all fair.”
“I think he did a good job in those couple of years, but I’m sure he is thrilled to move back into invisibility and let someone else handle the day-to-day operations.”
While Weston is stepping back from a public facing role, Ryder says he and the rest of the Weston family will remain prominent in Canada’s business landscape for years to come.
“We’re watching a real-life version of the TV show Succession, in a way,” he said. “Galen succeeded his father, there will be next generations of Westons that will succeed him. But because the family fortune is so tied up in the company, they’ll be there for quite a while.”
Daniel Tsai, a lecturer in law, business and technology at Toronto Metropolitan University, says while Weston is still very much in control of the family-run company, it seems clear that his time as the face of the operation wasn’t to his liking.
“He’s getting out of the kitchen, or the grocery store for that matter, because the heat’s too high,” Tsai said, adding that consumers shouldn’t expect the leadership change to bring down grocery prices any time soon — even if it does lead to a marketing switch.
“We may not be seeing that yellow sweater again.”
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