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13 December 2022
On the Move: CEOs shifts at VF Corp., Prada; Amazon Steam grows
Check out leadership news from Tyson Foods, dunnhumby, Cantu Beauty, Fetch Rewards and more.

Check out leadership news from Tyson Foods, dunnhumby, Cantu Beauty, Fetch Rewards and more.
Welcome to On the Move. Every week, The Current is rounding up the comings and goings of leaders at brands and retailers across the ecommerce, retail and CPG landscape.
This week, VF Corporation’s CEO decides to retire, while Amazon’s S-team has four new members. Plus, C-level executives are joining Tyson Foods, dunnhumby and Fetch Rewards.
Steve Rendle will retire as CEO of VF Corporation, which is the owner of apparel brands Vans, The North Face, Timberland and Dickies. Rendle served as CEO for the last five years, and worked at VF Corp. for nearly 25 years. Benno Dorer, a lead independent director of the company’s board, will serve as interim CEO with a search is commenced. The news came as VF Corp. cut its outlook for fiscal year 2023, owing to weaker than anticipated consumer demand, a more elevated promotional environment, inventory issues, the impact of inflation in Europe and COVID disruptions in China.
Gianfranco D’Attis was appointed CEO of the Prada brand, effective Jan. 2, 2023. D’Attis comes to Prada from Christian Dior Americas, where he served as president. The move follows last week’s news that Andrea Guerra will become the next CEO of The Prada Group, which oversees a luxury portfolio that includes the Prada brand.
Melanie Boulden. (Courtesy photo)
Melanie Boulden was appointed EVP and chief growth officer at Tyson Foods, effective Feb. 6, 2023. In this role, Boulden will oversee consumer and corporate branding, innovation, R&D, communications, and consumer insights and analytics. Boulden previously held leadership positions at Coca-Cola, most recently serving as CEO of Coca-Cola North America. She is also a board member of Adobe, and has held marketing leadership roles at Reebok, Crayola, Kraft Foods and Henkel Consumer Goods.
Amazon made a series of promotions to its vaunted S-Team (or, Steam, as it is known internally), which is the senior leadership core of the ecommerce giant. Leaders joining the decisionmaking unit include:
Matt O’Gradywas hired by customer data science firm dunnhumby as president of the Americas, driving growth in North and South America. O’Grady previously served as executive media consultant at media and data consulting firm 12th Street Measurement. He previously served in a number of leadership roles at Nielsen, including CEO of Nielsen Catalina Solutions.
Jordin Sparks. (Courtesy photo)
Jordin Sparks, the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter, was named brand ambassador of haircare brand Cantu Beauty. Sparks will help to spotlight Cantu’s community initiatives, including a partnership with Women Empowering Nations. "It's a dream to be working with Cantu to help uplift the next generation of women who are on their own unique and powerful journeys to building their bright futures," Sparks said, in a statement.
Fetch Rewards, the rewards app and consumer engagement platform that works with CPG companies, added a pair of C-level executives that will provide leadership as the company scales tech and operational capacity. They are:
Ask Instacart answers prompts with personalized recommendations.
A pair of recent launches from Instacart highlight how the grocery ecommerce company is integrating two of the key emerging areas of technology into its offerings: Generative AI and marketplaces.
Let’s take a look:
Instacart is seeking to harness generative AI to create a more personalized shopping experience.
A new tool called Ask Instacart that is launching this week is designed to allow customers to type in questions about specific recipes or general recommendations for an occasion. Embedded in the search bar, Ask Instacart also provides personalized questions to be asked by customers. In addition to specific items, it provides information about food preparation, product attributes and dietary considerations.
For those eying how generative AI will play a role in the shopping experience, Ask Instacart shows how search can be transformed into a place for discovery. Instacart is aiming to provide answers to the more open-ended questions that people would naturally ask, not just simply provide info in response to a question that has one answer. It shared the following sample prompts:
The tool is also showing the way for generative AI to integrate with retail media. Ask Instacart is designed to integrate with a brand's sponsored products campaign, so that the answers to questions that match consumer needs can also provide a way for brands to stand out.
To create the tool, Instacart combined the language understanding of ChatGPT with its own AI models. It added in catalog data from 80,000 retail partner locations around the country, which together have more than one billion shoppable items.
Beyond mission: Ecommerce marketplaces have honed a shopping experience where it’s easy to find what you’re looking for. But if shoppers want to happen upon something they didn’t know they needed, social media or the store is still the best place to visit. Instacart is showing how generative AI can make discovery a marketplace function. It also signals that advertising will come to generative AI by way of retail media. Going forward, the growth of discovery could make retail media more valuable as a tool for advertising that raises brand awareness, not just lower-funnel conversions.
Instacart will power a new virtual convenience store for the grocery chain Aldi.
Aldi Express will feature 2,000 of the most-shopped Aldi items, ranging from prepared food and snacks to grocery staples.
Drawing on 2,100 Aldi locations around the country, items will be delivered as fast as 30 minutes, the companies said.
“Through ALDI Express, we’re making shopping more convenient so you can satisfy a craving or get a missing ingredient in minutes,” said Scott Patton, VP of National Buying at ALDI, in a statement. “Together with Instacart, we’ll continue to find ways to innovate and make the online grocery experience even more effortless and accessible.”
Aldi began offering delivery via Instacart in 2017, and has since expanded services to include pickup as well as alcohol delivery.
Aldi’s marketplace moment? While Aldi previously offered delivery, making the assortment available through a virtual store offers the opportunity to create a marketplace for its goods. With the virtual store, it will more closely resemble DoorDash and Uber Eats, which have been expanding their grocery assortment. With a marketplace, additional revenue opportunities could open up for the grocer, such as advertising through retail media.