United Natural Foods has promoted Matt Whitney to chief strategy and innovation officer, effective immediately. In this new role, Whitney will be responsible for leading the company’s professional services and e-commerce business units while also developing new business models, pursuing innovation opportunities and implementing several ongoing strategic initiatives to complement UNFI’s base wholesale business.
“UNFI is focused on innovation and finding new ways to support our customers beyond a traditional distribution model. Our professional services and e-commerce teams are two critical growth vehicles that help make our customers stronger, more differentiated, and under Matt’s leadership these teams will help them continue to grow and flourish,” said Chris Testa, UNFI president. “His cross functional leadership, business acumen and strong strategic thinking will help us deliver results and ensure we are best positioned for future growth.”
Whitney joined UNFI in early 2020 as SVP of sales strategy and business transformation leading the company’s Value Path initiative, a cross-functional effort to identify sales growth, product efficiencies and cost containment opportunities. Prior to joining UNFI, he was the corporate VP of field transformation at Sysco, where he also served as EVP of their Boston division and head of the integration management office for Sysco’s proposed acquisition of US Foods.
Earlier in his career, Whitney worked in strategy consulting and mergers and acquisitions. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Tufts University and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.
Providence, Rhode Island-based UNFI is a food wholesaler delivering products to customer locations throughout North America including natural product superstores, independent retailers, conventional supermarket chains, e-commerce retailers and food service customers. Today, UNFI is the largest publicly traded grocery distributor in the United States.
