Ahold Delhaize Names New Chief Sustainability Officer
Ahold Delhaize has appointed Alex Holt chief sustainability officer and member of its executive committee, effective June 1, 2024. Holt succeeds Jan Ernst de Groot, Ahold Delhaize’s chief legal officer and chief sustainability officer, who will retire on May 31, 2024. As reported earlier, Linn Evans will take on the role of chief legal officer on April 15, 2024.
Holt is currently chief sustainability officer and member of the executive committee at Woolworths Group, Australia and New Zealand’s largest retailer, a role she has held since June 2021. Having joined Sydney-based Woolworths in 2011, Holt held a number of roles across its supermarket business, heading various commercial teams before becoming general manager of sustainability, health and quality in April 2016. She came to Woolworths Group from Tesco, where she spent seven years in a number of roles in business improvement, merchandising and sourcing.
“I am very happy that Alex will join our executive committee as our new chief sustainability officer,” said Ahold Delhaize President and CEO Frans Muller. “She brings relevant experience from a food retail, business leadership and sustainability perspective. She is a sharp thinker and inspiring leader with a deep understanding of the challenges and impact that this role brings in a food retail company with ambitions with regard to health, nature and climate.”
In her new role, along with her broader contributions and accountabilities as a member of the executive committee, Holt will drive sustainability vision and strategy, accelerate focus and collaboration across the organization and the supply chain, build and develop sustainability capabilities and mindsets within Ahold Delhaize’s brands and support organizations, and provide thought leadership, expertise and support to the executive team and brands to help them reach their goals.
Holt, who holds British/Australian nationality, will move with her husband from Australia to the Netherlands.
“I am very excited to join Ahold Delhaize, a company that wants to contribute positively to the transition to a sustainable food system,” she noted. “I am looking forward to partnering with the executive team, sustainability and business leaders across the company and across the industry to tackle the challenges that we face together and seize the opportunities that create the biggest impact.”
Ahold Delhaize USA, a division of Zaandam, Netherlands-based Ahold Delhaize, operates more than 2,000 stores across 23 states and is No. 10 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2023 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America. PG also named the company one of its Retailers of the Century and its 10 Most Sustainable Grocers.
