Q&A with IGA’s new CEO
Ross: “I think IGA plus digital consumers is going to be very exciting”
John Ross said he intends to “check his ego at the door and listen” when he reports to work at IGA for the first time next month, but the incoming president and CEO isn’t hiding big ambitions for the independent grocer network.
John Ross
Photo: IGA
Ross said he intends to reawaken the energy in and around IGA, and use his background and data and research to help members tap into the possibilities arising in a fast-changing market — particularly around digital shopping and changing consumer expectations and lifestyles — that he says may be favoring nimble independent grocers for the first time in decades.
Ross, 54, comes to IGA from Inmar, the software and data company through which he met his predecessor, Mark Betanic. Ross is also a former chief marketer for The Home Depot, who traces his retail background to his grandfather’s grocery store in West Virginia, where he grew up.
The following is an edited transcript from Ross’s conversation with SN, held Thursday.
SN: What the’s the first thing you want to do when you report to work at IGA?
Ross: Like any job, to walk in without a plan for active listening is a mistake. And you’ve got to walk in checking your bias at the door, and be prepared to listen to the folks who’ve been there doing it, and especially the retailers themselves. So I hope to spend as much time as I can engaged with retailers, the suppliers that specialize in the independent segment and the consumers themselves that prefer it.
I’ve also got a research background and I don’t like to guess — I like to know. And that means being informed by what consumers like and don’t like, and the understanding the choices they are making. So my game plan is active listening with the team, but also formal, statistical research-based listening that engages the consumers about what they really want.