Retail Leader magazine is relatively new and has a special focus:

In today’s rapidly changing, intensely competitive, and economically challenging environment, the demand has never been greater for a new and concise media resource that delivers news, analysis, and information specific to the needs of top managers in the retail food and allied industries. The key information resources for the retail food industry, Stagnito Media and the Grocery Manufacturers Association, have combined their strength and market knowledge to create Retail Leader, the FIRST media product solely dedicated to the critical issues and topics confronting the corner office.”

In its most recent issue, Retail Leader honored two senior executives as “CEOs of the Year:

“Rodney McMullen, Kroger: Rodney McMullen, who became CEO of Kroger at the beginning of 2014, has kept America’s biggest pure grocer on its winning path. Kroger’s last quarterly report marked its 47th consecutive quarter of growth, a streak that began under McMullen’s predecessor, David Dillon. In that quarter, Kroger’s same-store sales (excluding fuel) rose 5.3 percent and net income rose 24.8 percent. The success was spread evenly across Kroger’s vast geographic and product expanse, with all regions and supermarket departments reporting same-store sales increases. Those increases reached double digits in natural foods—an area where Kroger has made an especially strong push.”

“Like many grocery company CEOs, McMullen started with his company in a humble position: as a stock boy, while he was attending the University of Kentucky. He worked many jobs at the store in Lexington; ironically, cashier was the only one the accounting major couldn’t master. After he earned both an undergraduate degree and a master’s degree from Kentucky in four years, he accepted Kroger’s invitation to join its accounting department, in its division office in Charlotte, N.C.”

“Christopher Gheysens, Wawa: Gheysens became CEO of the convenience-store chain, originally based in Pennsylvania and other Northeastern states, in 2012, right when Wawa was about to execute one of its most momentous decisions: a move to Florida. But as a 15-year Wawa veteran, Gheysens was in a position to contribute to the decision to leapfrog across the United States, which was several years in the making. This is why Gheysens is one of Retail Leader‘s co-CEOs of the Year for 2015.”

“Gheysens started with Wawa in 1997, rising to the position of president and chief financial officer before he was made CEO at the end of 2012. He oversaw one of the boldest moves in Wawa’s long history: The company leapfrogged down the U.S. East Coast, landing in Florida. Wawa’s first Florida store opened in July 2012 in Orlando; it now has some 85 stores in central Florida, for a total of about 850.”

Click the magazine cover to read more.