Kroger Taps Next Chief Digital Officer

The Kroger Co. recently unveiled its succession plan for group vice president and chief digital officer.

 

Kevin Dougherty, 63, group vice president and chief digital officer, will retire on Jan. 27, 2017, after 15 years of service.

 

Yael Cosset, 43, chief commercial officer and chief information officer of 84.51°, Kroger's internal data & analytics unit, will succeed Dougherty.

 

Dougherty joined Kroger in 2001 as vice president of supply chain operations. He was promoted to group vice president of logistics in 2004, before being named group vice president and chief supply chain officer in 2010. Under his leadership, Kroger made considerable progress on its associate safety initiatives.

 

In 2012, Dougherty was promoted to group vice president of digital and Vitacost.com, where he has overseen Kroger's development of ClickList, an order online and pick up at the store service that has grown to roughly 550 locations (including Harris Teeter's ExpressLane service). He was named chief digital officer in 2015.

 

Cosset joined research house dunnhumby in 2009 as executive vice president of consumer markets. He was named global chief information officer in 2011 and led technology and product matters. He also served as chief executive officer of KSS Retail, a dunnhumby company and global enterprise software provider of price modeling and optimization solutions for retailers worldwide.

 

In both roles, Cosset collaborated closely with executives at Kroger as well as Tesco, Macy's and Raley's, among others, to develop customer insight and personalization platforms. He was named to his current role at 84.51° in 2015.

 

The 84.51° business was spun out from dunnhumby in spring 2015 as Kroger restructured its relationship with the agency, which had handled the supermarket retailer's shopper data for more than 10 years.