News Feature | June 9, 2017

Office Depot Shakes Up C-Suite Leadership To Better Align Company Focus

Christine Kern

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Office Depot Office Max Merger Problems

Announcement reveals business unit presidents and executive appointments.

Office Depot, Inc. has announced that it has made a number of appointments across its C-Suite that are designed to help better align the company with its new focus. In February, Lenovo Executive Gerry P. Smith was appointed as the New Chief Executive officer of the office supply retailer, succeeding retiring CEO Roland Smith, as Innovative Retail Technologies reported.  Smith had reiterated a company strategy to build business contract sales and streamline its supply chain in the name of “optimizing and reinventing retail.” The latest C-Suite changes are designed to help restructure company leadership to move towards those goals.

“With our Company’s revenue evenly split between the retail and delivery businesses, it is imperative that we have strong leadership to meet our customer needs in both of these key business segments,” said Gerry Smith, Chief Executive Officer for Office Depot, Inc. “Both Steve and Troy have significant experience leading these businesses which will allow us to better leverage our integrated multi-channel business model and continue to execute against our strategic initiatives.”

Among the new appointments are:

  • Steve Calkins as President, Business Solutions Division, focused on serving Office Depot’s B2B customers.
  • Troy Rice, named President. Retail Division, focusing on B2C customers.
  • Michael Allison, formerly Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer, named Executive Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer.
  • Kevin Moffitt, currently Senior Vice President, eCommerce, will assume the expanded role of Chief Digital Officer, leading eCommerce and all digital-related activities for the Company.
  • John Gannfors will join the Company in the role of Executive Vice President, Transformation and Strategic Sourcing, leading the company’s Transformation Office, process improvement and strategic sourcing areas and responsible for procurement, driving business process improvements across the organization and executing various efficiency and cost savings initiatives.

The other members of the company’s executive team are Stephen Hare, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and Timothy Beauchamp, Executive Vice President, Supply Chain.

“I am confident that with these leaders in place, we have the optimal structure and expertise to support and expand our customer base and focus on growing our North American business to position Office Depot for long-term future success,” added Smith.

Office Depot has been consciously focusing on new strategies in the wake of the failed merger with Staples, nixed last year. The Federal Trade Commission had requested an injunction against the $6.3 billion merger, citing that it would create a lack of competition in the market. Rather than fight the injunction, Staple’s chairman and CEO Ron Sargent said that it was in the best interests of all involved to drop the merger plans.

The office supply segment has faced increasing competition for sales from Amazon and the big box retailers, who can offer lower prices and faster, more convenient shipping rates.