The Newark Star-Ledger reports that Andreas Guldin, a member of the board of directors at the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. (A&P) as well as an executive managing director at the company, has been named vice chairman and chief strategy officer. The move comes in the wake this week of the forced resignation of CEO Eric Claus.
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Good luck with that.
Just for the hell of it, I did a quick check on the Internet and found the following Forbes profile of Guldin:
“Dr. Guldin was a Senior Executive Vice President (Corporate Finance) and Co-CFO of Tengelmann, a role which he held from July 2005 until April 2007. He has also served as an advisor to the Executive Chairman and Board of Directors of the Company and he was lead negotiator in the acquisition of Pathmark Stores, Inc. ('Pathmark'). Prior to joining Tengelmann, Dr. Guldin served from May 1995 to March 2005 as a member of the Executive Management Team and Chief Financial Officer ('CFO') at E. Breuninger GmbH & Co. (Germany), the most prestigious department store and fashion retailer in Germany. Since 2008, Dr. Guldin has served as CEO of Emil Capital Partners, LLC ('ECP'), an investment, management and consulting entity focused on business activities in North America. ECP is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tengelmann and is a Company stockholder. Dr. Guldin is a Visiting Faculty Member at the University Stuttgart and Dusseldorf for Finance and Performance Management. He holds a masters degree in Psychology from J.W. Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany; a masters degree in Business Administration from London Business School, UK; and a doctorate degree in Economics and Business Administration from University of Hohenheim, Germany.”
I don’t mean to be cynical here, but you tell me. Does this guy sound like he’s the guy to figure out a strategy that will save A&P in the rough and tumble New York and New jersey marketplace? I’m assuming it won’t be the same multi-format strategy, with a heavy emphasis on value-driven stores, that Eric Claus was working on...because if they thought that was the answer, they wouldn’t have gotten rid of a smart, respected, hard-driving CEO.
Two things stand out to me. He was CFO at a “prestigious department store and fashion retailer,” and he led the negotiations to acquire Pathmark, which has been a nightmare for A&P.
Like I said, good luck with that.
