Kroger tapped Mora to lead its mid-Atlantic division in 2024. She joined Kroger in 2022 as vice president on special assignment supporting End-to-End Fresh, an initiative designed to get the freshest food to shoppers, and became vice president for merchandising in its Michigan division.

Before joining Kroger, Mora worked for more than 26 years at Walmart, leaving in 2021 as a vice president. Mora holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania.

Kroger’s mid-Atlantic division operates more than 100 stores in Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio, staffed by about 18,000 associates. It has 68 stores in Virginia, but two stores in Charlottesville and Abingdon are closing in August and September, part of a larger plan to shutter 60 stores nationally. In 2024, unionized Kroger employees in the Richmond and Hampton Roads regions ratified a new three-year contract.

In 2022, Kroger and Albertsons Cos. announced plans for a $24.6 billion merger agreement, but it was blocked in court late last year. Now the two grocers are locked in dueling lawsuits in Delaware Chancery Court.

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An Israeli native, Kotler has led Arko, the nation’s sixth largest convenience store chain and parent company of GPM Investments, since 2020, when it merged with Haymaker Acquisition Corp. II to become a U.S.-listed public company. He founded GPM in 2003, sold the business in 2006 and reacquired it in 2011.

The company has been on an M&A journey in recent years, expanding from 200 convenience store sites in 2013 to approximately 3,600 company-operated stores as of March. It ranked No. 488 on the 2025 Fortune 500 list and has more than 11,000 employees. Arko brought in $20.8 million in net income in fiscal 2024, down from the nearly $35 million reported the previous year.

In September 2024, Reuters reported Arko was planning to divest its convenience store operations in a potentially $2 billion deal, a reversal from its M&A growth strategy. However, in a March earnings call, Kotler denied the company is planning to sell its convenience stores.

This year, Arko is building new food- focused convenience stores, with a rollout of eight pilot stores in the Richmond area. The first opened in Ashland in late June.

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In February, StarKist announced Min had been appointed president and CEO of the food company that produces the iconic single-serve tuna pouches as well as other salmon-, chicken-, and beef-based products. StarKist is a direct wholly owned subsidiary of Dongwon Industries Co.

Min succeeded Young Choi, who was announced as the company’s new leader in December 2023. With decades of leadership roles in sales, marketing and business strategy, Min had previously served as CEO of Dongwon Industries since December 2022. He also previously held leadership roles as executive vice president at both Dongwon Industries and Dongwon Systems.

Prior to that, Min spent nearly 30 years at Procter & Gamble, where he held leadership positions in Asia, including senior sales director and commercial leader for core Asian markets in Singapore.

Min earned his business degree from Yonsei University in South Korea and completed the Advanced Management Program at Seoul National University.

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Holm became Performance Food Group’s leader in 2008 after more than four decades in the foodservice distribution industry, with leadership roles at Sysco, US Foods, Alliant Foodservice and Vistar. He became president and CEO of PFG when the Blackstone Group and Wellspring Capital Management purchased PFG and merged it with a subsidiary of Vistar, where Holm was president and CEO, in a $1.4 billion deal.

PFG is No. 80 on the 2025 Fortune 500 and No. 272 on the Fortune Global 500, with $58.28 billion in net sales reported in fiscal 2024.

The company, which employs about 37,000 people, went public in 2015, and Holm became its board chairman in 2019. PFG delivers food products to more than 300,000 locations in the United States and Canada, including restaurants, businesses, schools, theaters and retailers. In October 2024, PFG acquired Florida-based food distributor Cheney Brothers, which generates about $3.2 billion in annual revenue.

Reports surfaced in early July that US Foods is exploring an acquisition of PFG, which would create the largest U.S. food service distributor, with roughly $100 billion in combined revenue.

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As a result of Sauer Brands’ acquisition by private equity firm Advent International from Falfurrias Capital Partners this year, Hermida became CEO of the 138-year-old condiments and seasonings company in March. Specific terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Bloomberg valued it at approximately $1.5 billion.

Hermida most recently was executive vice president and chief growth and strategy officer for Constellation Brands, an alcoholic beverage company based in New York.

He previously served as president of consumer packaged food company Sovos Brands, known for Rao’s Homemade, Noosa Yoghurt and Michael Angelo’s, and was chief growth officer before that.

Prior to joining Sovos, he was executive vice president of Reckitt, a multinational health, hygiene and nutrition consumer goods producer, where he oversaw the company’s multibillion- dollar North American hygiene business. Hermida also previously held management positions at Procter & Gamble.

Sauer Brands was founded in Richmond as The C.F. Sauer Co. in 1887. It produces condiments, spices, seasonings and extracts. The company has manufacturing facilities in Richmond, South Carolina, Kansas and California and is most famous for Duke’s Mayonnaise, Kernel Season’s, The Spice Hunter, Mateo’s Gourmet Salsa and Sauer’s.

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In 1983, barely five years after graduating from high school in Alexandria, Gramm sold two new cars on his first day as a sales rep at a dealership in Vienna. “The retail automobile business has been in my blood ever since,” he says.

Gramm worked in car sales in Virginia and Maryland, becoming vice president of Maryland Motors before buying his first dealership, Safford Dodge and RV in Fredericksburg, in 2002. In 2022, Safford purchased

Brown Automotive Group, which includes 16 stores in Virginia and Maryland and more than doubled Safford’s store count. The leadership team at Brown, based in Fairfax County, joined Safford, and the combined privately held company is now branded Safford Brown Automotive Group.

In 2025, Safford ranked No. 54 on Automotive News’ list of the top 150 vehicle dealership groups, a drop of 16 places from the previous year. Between 2023 and 2024, it had jumped from No. 87 to No. 38, which at the time made it the fastest- rising dealership in the nation.

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Hamilton stepped in as CEO of Arlington-based Nestlé’s Zone Americas division and joined the executive board on July 1. He succeeded Steve Presley, who worked at the company for almost 30 years. Hamilton previously served as business head of Purina PetCare Zone Europe. Now, he oversees Nestlé’s business in North America, Latin America and the Caribbean.

In 1991, Hamilton began his career with Purina as a sales representative before holding several leadership positions, including president and CEO of Nestlé Canada, president of Nestlé’s foods division in the U.S., and vice president of marketing at Nestlé Purina Asia, Oceania and Africa.

In the first half of 2025, Nestlé exceeded Wall Street’s expectations for earnings, achieving 2.9% in organic sales growth. The company is facing rising costs, however, due to tariffs — especially for coffee and cocoa — but it’s absorbing some of those expenses to maintain prices and retain customers. Nestlé is also investing about $1.27 billion in Brazil between 2025 and 2028 to boost its coffee, cocoa and milk production.

Hamilton earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology from DePauw University and his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

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A former board vice chair, Farino was named CEO of Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority in April 2024, succeeding Travis Hill, who led the agency for nearly a decade.

Farino was executive vice president of Sandston-based Breakthru Beverage Virginia and previously worked at Tidewater Wholesalers and Coca-Cola Bottling. He also was president of the Virginia Wine Wholesalers Association from 2019 to 2023.

Virginia ABC, which reported nearly $1.5 billion in revenue for fiscal 2024, transitioned from a state department to a semi-independent authority in 2018.

Virginia ABC was a launch market for Fireball Blazin’ Apple Whisky, making Virginia one of the first three states to offer the new product. The commonwealth’s first boxes of the spirit arrived in December 2024.

Farino is a graduate of the University of Richmond and was an artillery officer in the Marine Corps.

INTERESTING PLACE I’VE TRAVELED: Earlier in my U.S. Marine Corps career, I had an opportunity to travel to Toulon, France, and work with the French Marine Corps.

ADVICE FOR NEW COLLEGE GRADS: Remain open to new experiences, opportunities and suggestions. Open minds lead to open doors.

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