Rodney McMullen. Photo:
Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty
- Grocery store chain Kroger announced that chairman and CEO Rodney McMullen has resigned
- The company said the change came after a board investigation found that McMullen’s personal conduct was “inconsistent with Kroger’s Policy on Business Ethics”
- Ronald Sargent has been tapped as interim CEO, effective immediately
Rodney McMullen, the CEO and chairman of major grocery store chain Kroger, has resigned after an investigation by the company’s board into his personal conduct.
Kroger announced McMullen’s departure in a news release on Monday, Mar. 3. Succeeding him as chairman and interim CEO is Ronald Sargent effective immediately. The company also said that Mark Sutton has been tapped as Kroger’s lead independent director.
The company said McMullen’s resignation came “following a Board investigation of his personal conduct that, while unrelated to the business, was inconsistent with Kroger’s Policy on Business Ethics.”
PEOPLE reached out to McMullen for comment on Monday.
The company also said that its board was made aware of McMullen’s personal conduct on Feb. 21 and hired an outside independent counsel to investigate.
“Mr. McMullen’s conduct is not related to the Company’s financial performance, operations or reporting, and it did not involve any Kroger associates,” Kroger’s news release added.
According to The Wall Street Journal, McMullen served as Kroger’s CEO in 2014 and was appointed chairman the following year. He joined the company in 1978 as a part-time stock clerk and rose through the ranks, the newspaper added.
The news of McMullen’s departure comes as Albertsons, a rival grocery store company, called off its proposed $25 billion merger with Kroger after a federal judge nixed the transaction, CNN reported. Had it gone through, the deal would’ve been the largest grocery store merger in American history, reported The New York Times,
Afterward, Albertsons filed a lawsuit against Kroger, alleging breach of contract. Kroger called the lawsuit “baseless” in a December news release.
“We went to extraordinary lengths to uphold the merger agreement throughout the entirety of the regulatory process and the facts will make that abundantly clear,” said Kroger.
“We are incredibly proud of the Kroger team for how they worked through the merger process with the highest degree of integrity and commitment,” it added.
In its Mar. 3 news release about the change of CEO, Kroger said that its board has launched a search committee to find the company’s next CEO. Meanwhile, Sargent will serve in that role for the time being.
“As interim CEO, I am committed to working alongside our proven and experienced management team and dedicated associates to ensure Kroger continues providing exceptional value for our customers,” said Sargent, who has been a Kroger director for nearly 20 years, in a press statement.
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“Kroger has been a special place throughout my retail career after spending summers in college working in stores, as well as my first ten years after business school at corporate headquarters, before more recently serving as lead independent director,” he continued. “My decades here have given me a full appreciation of what makes Kroger unique, and I am excited to work even more closely with this talented team. I plan to be a steady, but active hand in the execution of our strategy.”
Founded in 1883 in Cincinnati, Kroger has about 2,800 stores in 35 states, according to the company’s website.
In an email to PEOPLE, a Kroger spokesperson says the company has no additional comment about McMullen’s exit other than what was shared in its news release.
