People on the Move: Casey's General Stores, GPM Investments, Rich Products & VIA Group

Casey's General Stores

Katrina Lindsey joined Casey's General Stores Inc. as chief legal officer and corporate secretary. This role leads Casey's legal, risk management, compliance, food safety, government affairs, and corporate reporting functions. Lindsey reports to CEO Darren Rebelez.

Lindsey's experience most recently includes several years at Office Depot where she served as senior vice president, deputy general counsel, chief compliance officer and assistant corporate secretary. She held roles on the company's Information Security Incident Response team, Enterprise Risk Management Committee, Diversity and Inclusion Council, and Sustainability Governance Council. Early in 2021 she was recruited to a chief diversity officer and senior vice president, Business Development at a subsidiary within the company.

Prior to Office Depot, Lindsey worked at Darden Restaurants leading the 1,700-plus restaurant chain's legal team as senior vice president, Division General Counsel. Before joining Darden, she spent six years at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. She began her career with several years focused on real estate and commercial litigation in law firms.

Coin Cloud 

Coin Cloud hired Ray Taddeo as vice president of sales. In this position, Taddeo will help accelerate growth plans for the company's Digital Currency Machines currently found in convenience stores, supermarkets, pharmacies and specialty retailers across the United States and Brazil.

Taddeo brings more than 20 years of sales and leadership experience to Coin Cloud. During his career, he previously served U.S. retailers with positions at Coinstar, Redbox and InComm Payments.

Gopuff

Gopuff made several executive moves to close out 2021.

The company appointed Kerry Person as vice president of Global Supply Chain, Engineering, & Delivery Operations. Prior to Gopuff, Person served as the head of operations at Convoy for nearly two years and spent more than a dozen years at Amazon, where he most recently served as vice president, North American Logistics. Person also spent time at Procter & Gamble as a process engineer. 

In addition, Scott Shaw joined the company to serve as vice president of Global Customer Service. Shaw joins Goupff from Alto Pharmacy where he served as the vice president of Care. He also held previous positions as director of Customer Service & Continuous Improvement at Amazon, director of Sales Operations at T-Mobile, and senior vice president of Customer Experience for Bank of America's Bank West Division.

Ani Bajirao also joined Gopuff as senior director of Engineering. Before joining Gopuff, Bajirao served as the head of Product, Engineering and Design at HotelTonight, which was acquired by Airbnb in 2019. Before joining HotelTonight more than three years ago, Bajirao spent nearly seven years at Match.com, most recently serving as the director of Engineering, Apps. Earlier in his career, he also served as an Android mobile developer for Samsung.

GPM Investments LLC

GPM Investments, a wholly owned subsidiary of Arko Corp. welcomed Jackie Meekins to the team as senior marketing analyst.

Meekins joins GPM from 7-Eleven Inc. where she worked as an associate category manager, supporting the cigarette and tobacco categories. In this role, Meekins developed promotional sales plans and managed marketing for promotional activities, communicating to the field and operations for all 7-Eleven stores in the United States. Meekins also facilitated product assortment and new item launches.

She comes to GPM with experience in forecasting, rebate management, pricing, and promotional analytics.

The National Confectioners Association

The National Confectioners Association's (NCA) board of trustees welcomed in Barry Rosenbaum, president of Nassau Candy Distributors, as the new chairman during its fall meeting.

Rosenbaum succeeds former Paul Chibe, who recently transitioned from his role as CEO, Ferrero North America, to his new position as global president, Sugar Confectionery and Gums, based in Ferrero's Luxembourg office.

Additionally, Tony Jacobs, president of Bazooka Candy Brands, a division of the Topps Co., is now vice chairman, a position previously held by Rosenbaum. In addition to their roles on NCA's board, Rosenbaum and Jacobs will service as chair and vice chair, respectively, of NCA's Vision 2025 Task Force, which aims to better articulate and address the needs of NCA and the confectionery industry as part of the association's Thrive in 2025 strategic plan.

Rich Products Corp.

President and Chief Operating Officer, U.S.-Canada Region Ray Burke retired Dec. 31, and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Jim Deuschle is retiring on March 31.

Following the retirement announcements, the company promoted Kevin Spratt to president, U.S.-Canada region and David Faturos to executive vice president, CFO. In addition, Dave Cowperthwait will join the executive team as executive vice president, chief supply chain officer, a newly created role at Rich's. Beyond the core executive team, Rich's announced a number of additional leadership changes including Lauren Lopez, who has been promoted to senior vice president, foodservice division.

The company also created a new Transformation Office, which will be overseen by Georgia Dachille, executive vice president, chief innovation, strategy and transformation officer, and led by Kristin Alongi, who has been named vice president, business transformation. This office will be tasked with creating an organized, focused strategy and governance process around the organization's portfolio, productivity and digital transformation initiatives.

SIGMA

SIGMA honored Tod Butler with the Society of Independent Gasoline Marketers of America (SIGMA) 2021 Distinguished Statesman Award. The award was presented to Butler as an individual whose deeds and efforts over the past 50 years have made a significant contribution to the welfare of the retail fuel marketing industry. He is one of only five individuals to be so honored in the history of the association.

Butler joined SIGMA in the early 1970s as a regular member and was elected treasurer in 1983.  Over the next decade, he served on multiple committees, and in 1991 he was elected president during a crucial time for independent marketers and the industry overall.

In 1995, Butler sold his petroleum marketing and distribution company and started his 25-year career in financial services. In 2001, he joined Matrix as a vice president in the firm's Downstream Energy & Convenience Retail Investment Banking Group where he has focused on business development and client advisory. He served in that capacity until he became a senior advisor in 2019. Since joining Matrix, Butler has led the firm's partnership with SIGMA and continued to focus his efforts on the association's growth in membership and as counsel to its leadership. 

Stewart's Enterprises

Stewart's Enterprises appointed Tony Gaines as CEO of the company. An experienced alcohol and consumer product goods (CPG) business leader, he succeeds Peter Strahm, who will be transitioning to a chief commercial officer position, focusing on U.S. operations and distributor execution.

Gaines comes to Stewart's with more than 25 years experience as an executive in alcohol beverages. He previously held positions with the E&J Gallo Wine Co., Anheuser Busch, and Advantage Sales and Marketing where he represented several spirits brands in the military channel worldwide.

In addition to his alcohol-related experience, Gaines worked with fortune 100 CPG companies and led start-ups to outpace their markets. Most recently, he was the CEO of a health and wellness company that he transformed from a struggling CPG sales organization to a leading manufacturing business in the same field.

VIA Group

Retail branding and marketing experts Gerry Lewis, Roger van den Bergh and Myra Kressner formed VIA Group to diversify the branding options available to convenience retailers and retail trade associations wishing to project an integrated image across their diverse chains and group members.

Lewis is the former chairman and CEO of the CDI Group Inc. and worked with more than 300 convenience retailers on five continents.

Kressner previously co-founded a business-to-business media brand covering the convenience and gas industry. She founded Kressner Strategy Group in 2016, bringing her expertise to strategic and tactical planning in food retail industries, and co-founded The Vision Group in 2020, a business resource group for cross channel discussion of disruptive solutions. Kressner was a Convenience Store News 2021 Top Women in Convenience.

Van den Bergh created identity design programs for many leading companies including Continental Airlines (now United Airlines), The Urban Institute, The Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York and the Boeing Co. Working with Lewis, van den Bergh also created the brand identity system for Twice Daily convenience stores and developed branding concepts for Texaco, Mobil, McDonald's and Irving Oil.