- Kroger has abruptly replaced its CEO with an interim leader, the grocery chain said on Monday.
- Rodney McMullen resigned, and Ronald Sargent is taking over his role.
- The chain said it learned about conduct “inconsistent with Kroger’s Policy on Business Ethics.”
The grocery chain Kroger is replacing its longtime CEO after an investigation into his personal conduct, it said Monday.
Kroger said that it learned about conduct by Rodney McMullen that was “inconsistent with Kroger’s Policy on Business Ethics.”
“On February 21, the Board was made aware of certain personal conduct by Mr. McMullen and immediately retained outside independent counsel to conduct an investigation, which was overseen by a special Board committee,” Kroger said.
No Kroger associates were involved in McMullen’s conduct, Kroger said. It added that the behavior wasn’t related to the company’s financial performance.
McMullen has resigned from the CEO role, Kroger said. He was appointed Kroger’s leader in 2014 and became chair of the company’s board of directors the following year.
The company has appointed Ronald Sargent, a member of its board of directors who’s a former CEO of Staples, as interim CEO and board chair while it searches for a permanent replacement. Mark Sutton will take over as the company’s lead independent director.
Kroger is the largest supermarket chain in the US by sales. The company operates grocery stores under multiple names, including Harris Teeter and Fry’s.
The company is expected to report fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday. It said it expects full-year identical sales excluding fuel to be at the high end of its guidance range and adjusted EPS to be “slightly above” the high end of its guidance.
McMullen started his first job at Kroger in 1978, when he worked part-time as a stocking clerk at a store in Lexington, Kentucky, according to Kroger.
He earned accounting degrees at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, where he has been honored as a distinguished alumnus. He was the first in his family to go to college, according to a 2014 profile by The Cincinnati Enquirer.
McMullen built his career at Kroger and held several different roles at the grocer, including as CFO from 1995 to 2000.
“He was a key player on every major decision after 1987 when he was just a kid,” Bill Sinkula, Kroger’s former CFO, told the Enquirer in the 2014 profile.
As CEO, he oversaw Kroger’s growing online and delivery business and a rebrand of Kroger in 2019.
McMullen was also CEO when the nearly $25 billion proposed merger of Kroger and Albertsons fell apart after two years of attempts to win approval from regulators.
On a Reddit page for Kroger employees, many posts expressed surprise at McMullen’s sudden departure and curiosity about what exactly led to his resignation.
“We NEED TO KNOW,” one poster wrote.
A couple of posts pointed to Kroger’s decision not to award McMullen a 2024 bonus or give him any unvested equity on his way out. Kroger confirmed those decisions in a filing Monday with the SEC.
“Whatever it is, it definitely pissed the board off,” one commenter wrote.
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