Latest news with #McMullen
USA Today
3 days ago
- Business
- USA Today
Kroger paid former CEO Rodney McMullen more than $15M in 2024, median worker got $34K
Kroger paid former CEO Rodney McMullen more than $15M in 2024, median worker got $34K Show Caption Hide Caption Kroger ousts long-time CEO after probe into personal conduct Longtime Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen has resigned after an internal investigation found that his personal conduct was "inconsistent" with the company's ethics policy. Reuters Kroger paid former CEO Rodney McMullen $15.4 million in 2024 – the final year before his abrupt March 3 resignation in the wake of a company ethics investigation. The amount was a slight decrease from his previous year's pay, according to a corporate filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. A year before, the former CEO of the nation's largest supermarket retailer was paid $15.5 million, according to the Associated Press' methodology for executive compensation that excludes pension value changes. Interim CEO Ron Sargent, a Kroger board member and former Staples CEO, took over at the retailer after the exit of McMullen. CEO for more than 11 years, McMullen resigned amid an investigation into his 'personal conduct' that 'was inconsistent' with the grocer's policy of business ethics, the grocer disclosed. In case you missed it: Investigation finds Kroger overcharging on sale items Sargent, 69, said on a conference call a few days later that Kroger would conduct a national search for a successor and consider both internal and external candidates for the CEO position. The company hasn't given a timeline for naming McMullen's permanent successor. Median worker saw pay climb amid executive shuffle In 2024, the typical Kroger worker's pay rose $2,900, climbing 9% in 2024 to $34,213. The ratio of McMullen's pay to the median Kroger worker pay, as required to be reported by the government, was 457 to 1, narrowing from the previous ratio of 502 to 1 the previous year. Kroger's proxy, filed on May 15, also reflected a spate of recent executive turnover as half the 'named executive officers,' whose pay is subject to public disclosure, no longer work for the grocer. The filing listed three current executives still employed at Kroger: Mary Ellen Adcock, the company's chief merchant and marketing officer; Yael Cosset, the retailer's head of digital; and Timothy Massa, the associate experience officer (head of human resources and labor relations). Besides McMullen, the proxy lists two other ex-Kroger executives: former chief financial officers Gary Millerchip (who left Kroger for the same position at Costco in early 2024) and Todd Foley (who served as interim chief of finance until retiring this spring). A profitable Fortune 500 company doing business in 35 states A Fortune 500 company, Kroger earned a $2.7 billion profit on $147.1 billion of sales in 2024. In addition to Kroger stores, the Cincinnati-based grocer operates several regional supermarket chains in 35 states, including Fred Meyer, Harris Teeter, Ralphs, Mariano's, Fry's, Smith's, King Soopers, QFC and others. The company has more than 2,700 stores and employs 409,000 workers.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Kroger paid former CEO Rodney McMullen more than $15M in 2024, median worker got $34K
Kroger paid former CEO Rodney McMullen $15.4 million in 2024 – the final year before his abrupt March 3 resignation in the wake of a company ethics investigation. The amount was a slight decrease from his previous year's pay, according to a corporate filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. A year before, the former CEO of the nation's largest supermarket retailer was paid $15.5 million, according to the Associated Press' methodology for executive compensation that excludes pension value changes. Interim CEO Ron Sargent, a Kroger board member and former Staples CEO, took over at the retailer after the exit of McMullen. CEO for more than 11 years, McMullen resigned amid an investigation into his 'personal conduct' that 'was inconsistent' with the grocer's policy of business ethics, the grocer disclosed. In case you missed it: Investigation finds Kroger overcharging on sale items Sargent, 69, said on a conference call a few days later that Kroger would conduct a national search for a successor and consider both internal and external candidates for the CEO position. The company hasn't given a timeline for naming McMullen's permanent successor. In 2024, the typical Kroger worker's pay rose $2,900, climbing 9% in 2024 to $34,213. The ratio of McMullen's pay to the median Kroger worker pay, as required to be reported by the government, was 457 to 1, narrowing from the previous ratio of 502 to 1 the previous year. Kroger's proxy, filed on May 15, also reflected a spate of recent executive turnover as half the 'named executive officers,' whose pay is subject to public disclosure, no longer work for the grocer. The filing listed three current executives still employed at Kroger: Mary Ellen Adcock, the company's chief merchant and marketing officer; Yael Cosset, the retailer's head of digital; and Timothy Massa, the associate experience officer (head of human resources and labor relations). Besides McMullen, the proxy lists two other ex-Kroger executives: former chief financial officers Gary Millerchip (who left Kroger for the same position at Costco in early 2024) and Todd Foley (who served as interim chief of finance until retiring this spring). A Fortune 500 company, Kroger earned a $2.7 billion profit on $147.1 billion of sales in 2024. In addition to Kroger stores, the Cincinnati-based grocer operates several regional supermarket chains in 35 states, including Fred Meyer, Harris Teeter, Ralphs, Mariano's, Fry's, Smith's, King Soopers, QFC and others. The company has more than 2,700 stores and employs 409,000 workers. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Kroger's former CEO was paid $15M in 2024, typical worker made $34K Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Will Kroger's next CEO be a woman?
Will Kroger's next CEO be a woman? An insider or someone new? An internet wiz or someone all about stores? Nearly three months after the abrupt departure of CEO Rodney McMullen, the Cincinnati-based supermarket giant hasn't offered any new information on its search for a successor. Interim CEO Ron Sargent, 69, a Kroger board member and former Staples CEO, told Wall Street analysts the retailer would conduct a national search, but would also consider internal candidates. Kroger officials declined to comment on the company's ongoing search for a new CEO. Still, among Kroger's 12 top executives, four are women and two of them, Mary Adcock and Valerie Jabbar, have critical operations experience that might put them in the running for the top spot. Both have experience overseeing Kroger divisions that include the management of thousands of stores. If the Kroger board of directors is leaning toward picking an outsider for the top job, the company could look for a top executive (male or female) with experience at a rival, such as Walmart or Costco, or lure top talent from a consumer products supplier, such as Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble. One thing missing from the top ranks of Kroger's executives is anyone with the title of president and chief operating officer, which both McMullen and his predecessor, David Dillon, held before getting the CEO position. The lack of a clear No. 2 executive suggests McMullen, 64, and the board of directors weren't planning for a leadership transition in the near future before the CEO's sudden exit. Kroger disclosures show McMullen's departure was hasty: The company said it came about after the board 'was made aware' of some undisclosed conduct and 'immediately' hired an outside lawyer to investigate 10 days before he resigned. McMullen resigned amid an investigation into his 'personal conduct' that was "inconsistent' with the grocer's policy of business ethics, the grocer announced March 3. Sargent took over at the retailer after McMullen's sudden exit after more than 11 years as CEO. The company hasn't offered additional detail about the conduct, other than to say it was 'not related to the company's financial performance, operations or reporting, and it did not involve any Kroger associates.' Kroger officials have offered no update of the CEO search or a timeline for filling the role since Sargent's comments to Wall Street analysts during the March earnings call. A look at Kroger's past leaders and who rivals tap as CEOs shows retailers prefer internal candidates that have risen through the ranks. Grocery retailers also gravitate toward executives who run large swathes of stores as opposed to heads of major support departments, like human resources, finance or legal. At Kroger, McMullen took an unusual path toward the corner office, at first heading finance as chief financial officer in the late 1990s. He was later made the head of strategy and planning in addition to finance in 2000 before becoming president and COO in 2009. Kroger's previous CEOs, David Dillon and Joseph Pichler, had both overseen retail divisions at Kroger before becoming president and heir apparent: Dillon ran Dillons Food Stores, which is based in Kansas and also has stores in Missouri and Nebraska; Pichler had also been a top Dillons executive before it was acquired by Kroger. A similar pattern plays out at top Kroger rivals. Walmart CEO Douglas McMillon, 58, headed the retailer's international operations before getting the top job in 2014. At Costco, Ron Vachris, 59, became CEO in 2024 after serving as president and COO for almost two years and head of merchandising before that, from 2016 to 2022. In March, Albertsons, which called off its planned merger with Kroger in late 2024 after regulators blocked the deal, named Susan Morris, 56, its CEO after she served 2018 to 2025 as chief operations officer. She replaced Vivek Sankaran, who announced his retirement the same day McMullen resigned from Kroger. So who are top executives at Kroger with oversight of core operations? While the company lists 12 people among its senior executive team in its annual report, at least half of them oversee supply chain, finance, legal, human resources and other support functions that generally don't lead to the CEO job. Another is Sargent, who is serving as interim CEO, and two others who have left in recent changes in the executive team. Top executives below Sargent are: Mary E. Adcock, 49, Kroger's chief merchant and marketing officer since December, whose previous job was head of retail operations from 2019 to 2024. Yael Cosset, 51, who was named the company's chief digital officer in March and whose previous job was chief information officer from 2019 to 2025. Kroger's digital operations, which include home delivery and pickup, is a $12 billion business. Valerie Jabbar, 56, has been senior vice president responsible for the oversight of several Kroger retail divisions since 2021. If Kroger's board wants an outsider for its next boss, it could always poach a top executive from another top retailer. A former Walmart or Costco executive could prove a tempting candidate – assuming non-compete agreements don't prevent them from moving. One such possibility, for example, might be Judith McKenna, 58, former CEO of Walmart's international division. She retired from the company in January 2024. Walmart's non-compete agreements typically last two years, according to corporate disclosures, suggesting she might be available in early 2026. She currently sits on the board of directors of Delta Air Lines and Unilever. One caveat: senior Walmart executives are expensive; McKenna's pay when she left Walmart was nearly $14 million annually. (McMullen's last annual pay package, for the 2024 fiscal year was $15.5 million). Another option would be to nab a senior executive from a consumer company that works extensively with supermarkets. When Albertsons enlisted Sankaran in 2019 to lead its company, he'd previously served as a top executive at PepsiCo, most recently as North American CEO of its Frito Lay division. Top executives at P&G could also be affordable. One example: Fatima Francisco, CEO of P&G's paper products business, made $7.3 million in the last fiscal year. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Kroger's next CEO could be one of several qualified women Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘It's the best game ever invented': is padel the new pickleball?
It was Darren McMullen's obsession with padel that led him to missing an audition and changing the course of his life. Known for his role as Alex Larden on House Husbands and for presenting shows such as The Voice Australia, he had increasingly been sucked into padel tournaments. 'My agent went crazy: 'What were you thinking? What's your bread and butter?',' McMullen says. 'I was like, 'God, you're right. I should open a padel centre.'' Advertisement That was 2023; now he has three sites in Sydney and Canberra, including one in Moore Park with a sauna, ice baths and DJ decks. While Racquet Club does have pickleball courts as well, McMullen is firmly a padel man. 'I think it's the best game ever invented,' he says. Pickleball may be one of the fastest growing sports in Australia, not least because courts are popping up in breweries. But padel is snapping at its heels. Australia is relatively late to the party, but there are now 14 padel clubs around the country, and the delirium that the sport attracts overseas, in Europe and South America in particular, is feeding the buzz over here. (Incidentally, McMullen advises you don't poshly pronounce 'padel' as 'padelle', since to do so would mark you out as a who 'goes to Barcelona once and refuses to say the name without a lisp'.) Both padel and pickleball appeal to wannabe or retiring tennis players, since they're less hard on the body (particularly thanks to the underarm serve) and can be played with a lower skill level, but they also attract a broader demographic because of the sociability of being doubles sports. Pickleball, originally invented as a family game, is played on an open 13.41 x 6.1m court with a plastic ball, while padel is played on a 20m x 10m glass-walled court (for squash-like returns), using a ball that's more like a tennis ball. The upstart sports have attracted the attention of celebrity fans, too. Team Padel includes tennis pros from Rafael Nadal to Pat Rafter, who is Padel Australia's founding ambassador, while Lionel Messi co-owns a padel team and Cristiano Ronaldo owns clubs. Team Pickleball counts Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf (who both have signature pickleball paddles), and Billie Eilish and Coldplay have stopped by Racquet Club for a pickleball playoff. Advertisement There's a sense of tribalism that arises from loyalty to one sport or the other. The Telegraph UK called this jousting 'the battle for the new middle class favourite sport'. 'Pickleball's a fantastic game,' McMullen says generously, 'but it's a game, not a sport.' So which should we emotionally invest in – is this rivalry just VHS v Beta all over again, with one bound for extinction? The Guardian asked three players with skin in the game. Which requires more skill? Rosa Morris is a former tennis player who gave up when a shoulder injury got in the way of her overarm serve. She and a friend were trying to find unusual things to do, which led them to dragon boat racing, axe throwing and then pickleball. She now competes internationally and reached No 1 in Australia for masters. Yes, pickleball can be fun, but as Morris says 'I never do anything for fun'. Advertisement 'The speed of pickleball is incredible,' she says. 'The ball comes rocketing at you and you've got to change direction very quickly. The rallies you have at the net are called fireflies or hand battles. It's like ping-pong on steroids.' Morris isn't sure about padel. 'I've watched a bit of it,' she says. 'It's crazy. They can go out of the door and play the ball and it looks like no one can ever win a point; it goes on and on.' To this attitude, McMullen replies, 'I could give my mum, who's never played a racket sport, a pickleball paddle and she'd be able to have a back and forth.' No matter how skilled a player is, there's always an opportunity for injury. Rob Daley is chief operating officer of Game4Padel in Australia, which has clubs expanding across Victoria and an ambassador in Andy Murray. He also plays on the national senior men's padel team and half-jokes that padel could become our new most dangerous sport in the same way that squash was in the 80s, when middle-aged executives suddenly started exerting themselves. Advertisement Morris admits to having 'done two hammies' from the fast pivoting that pickleball requires. Geelong-based GP (and occasional pickleball player) Adrian Jury told the Guardian that he had heard radiologists were seeing an epidemic of Achilles ruptures in older players who'd had a few drinks before hitting the court. Which is more affordable? Depending on the site and time, Game4Padel charges $50-$80 for an hour of padel and $20 for pickleball, while Racquet Club charges $60-$100 for a hour of padel compared with $30-$50 for pickleball. 'When you take into consideration that each padel court costs $100,000, we spend close to $2m fitting out a warehouse, and our rent is close to a million dollars a year, I would say it's quite reasonable,' McMullen says. By contrast, Pickleball courts often get marked out on existing volleyball, badminton and indoor soccer courts, making them much cheaper. 'The lines get freaking confusing,' says Morris, who prefers to travel 90 minutes to use a $50-an-hour purpose-built court. Which is likely to make it to the Olympics first? Game4Padel plans to develop junior programs and high performance programs, to develop the sport's growth and get a young generation Olympic-ready. Advertisement 'There's an arms race to try and get a spot in the 2032 Brisbane Olympics,' Daley says. 'Padel's a fair way in front, but there's a pretty big checklist to tick off and probably a few things that the governing body is still a bit short on. With pickleball, there's no single international governing body … and if you haven't got that, the reality is you've got no chance.' McMullen is frustrated by all the red tape. In part, it's a lack of enthusiasm from local councils and constituencies – 'It's like we're asking to put in a fucking nightclub' – but he also cites the ambivalent approach of Tennis Australia, who promote padel, but who also recommend that the integration 'not come at the expense of well-utilised tennis facilities or tennis programming'. In other words, tennis clubs aren't encouraged to surrender a court to accommodate padel. Rivalry aside, in the end all three players think that interest in one sport will naturally boost interest in the other. And tennis will come around. Eventually.
USA Today
20-05-2025
- USA Today
'Are you joking?' Montana National Guardsmen accused of landing Black Hawk for elk antlers
'Are you joking?' Montana National Guardsmen accused of landing Black Hawk for elk antlers The charges stem from a May 4 incident in which the men are accused of landing the UH-60 Black Hawk on a private ranch near Melville. A defense attorney says the men are innocent until proven guilty. Three members of the Montana National Guard are facing trespassing charges after authorities say they landed a Black Hawk helicopter on a ranch to collect elk antlers. The guardsmen are identified as: 30-year-old Michael Vincent Bray, 30-year-old Perry Wray Woodland, and 36-year-od Deni Lynn Draper. They face charges of misdemeanor criminal trespassing in Sweet Grass County Justice Court with an appearance in court scheduled for May 28, Bray's lawyer, Nathan Hulling. told USA TODAY on Tuesday. The charges stem from a May 4 incident in which the guardsmen are accused of landing the UH-60 Black Hawk on the ranch of Linda McMullen near Melville, approximately 80 miles northeast of Bozeman, multiple media outlets have reported. Bray's citation alleges he was the one to land the helicopter, the Big Timber Pioneer reported. The Montana National Guard confirmed to USA TODAY that the guardsmen were on a training flight from Billings to Helena and that four elk antlers have been returned to the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Sweet Grass County Sheriff Alan Ronneberg told the Pioneer that "it is not the usual trespass call." "I've never seen anything like it before," he told the outlet. Hulling said that Bray intends to plead not guilty and that the guardsmen are "innocent until proven guilty." "We are at the very beginning of the judicial criminal process so there's still a ton of fact-finding to be done," Hulling said. National Guard investigating alleged trespassing Major General J. Peter Hronek, the adjutant general for the Montana National Guard, said in a May 14 statement on Facebook that an internal investigation is underway. "If true, this behavior does not align with the values of the Montana National Guard. Misuse of military equipment erodes the trust we strive to uphold with the people of Montana," Hronek wrote. Ronneberg said in a news release that sheriff's office, Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks and the Sweet Grass County Attorney's Office are working in to determine if other charges will be filed. What happened on Linda McMullen's ranch? McMullen told the New York Times that a neighbor spotted the helicopter land on her property while she was traveling in Nevada. 'He said, 'Linda, there's a green Army helicopter landed on your place, picking up elk antlers,'' McMullen told the Times. 'I said, 'Are you joking?' He said, 'I'm looking at them with binoculars.'' McMullen told the Pioneer that she spoke to a high-level National Guard official who promised to return the antlers and requested that she not press charges. "They used the excuse, 'These are good guys,' that I don't want to ruin their careers," McMullen said. "They should have thought about that before doing this. I think people need to know this is happening." She added that she felt the incident was "an egregious violation of trust in our government," according to the Times. McMullen did not respond to USA TODAY's request for comment. Elk antlers are listed on Claw, Antler and Hide Co. for a retail price between $96 and $308, with one set selling for $453. The Times reported that a freshly shed brown antler can sell for up to $14 a pound and weigh as much as 12 pounds. Attorney: Guardsmen deserve benefit of the doubt Hulling pointed to his client's "long and distinguished service history." "We need to give them the benefit of the doubt and we need to let the justice system play out, which is why we're entering a not guilty plea," Hulling said.
