Wakefern Food Corp.

As CIO for Wakefern, I’ve led the transformation of our technology organization into a modern, business-aligned function that drives strategic growth and innovation for the company. Over the past three years, I’ve delivered both structural and cultural shifts to elevate the value of technology across the enterprise. Key accomplishments: -Built a high-performing leadership team through focused coaching and development, ensuring strong, sustainable IT governance and execution. -Defined and secured buy-in for a comprehensive five-year technology strategy aligned with Wakefern’s business growth goals. -Reshaped the IT operating model by identifying critical functional, technical, and change management capabilities, and strategically recruiting top-tier talent to fill those needs. -Reduced budgeted headcount by ~10% while improving organizational capability and efficiency. -Established a purpose-driven culture grounded in four core principles: winning, obsessive collaboration, cultivating excellence, and having fun. -Redefined the IT organization’s “go-to-market” approach, collaborating closely with business partners to select and deliver technology solutions that drive ROI and create competitive advantage. -Successfully executed this selection approach across major initiatives in HCM, SAP, Loyalty, TMS, CLM, and data platforms. -Deepened business-technology integration by aligning technical teams to business outcomes rather than technical outputs alone. -Enhanced cybersecurity posture by refining enterprise security protocols and implementing best-in-class practices. -Overseeing the implementation of key transformation initiatives, including implementations of SAP Finance & Supply Chain, HCM, TMS, GCP, Loyalty, and Production Planning. -Modernized core infrastructure, deploying a new mainframe, upgrading all SAP environments, rolling out SD-WAN, and introducing robust security enhancements