Dollar General promotes Steve Deckard and Tracy HerrmannDollar General promotes Steve Deckard and Tracy Herrmann

Dollar General announced a pair of executive personnel changes on Wednesday.

Steve Deckard, who was DG’s EVP of Store Operations and Development, has accepted a new role as EVP of Strategy and Development. Tracy Herrmann has been promoted to EVP of Store Operations. 

Most recently, Herrmann served as SVP of Store Operations, leading three divisions of DG stores in the Southeast. 

Deckard led Dollar General’s international expansion into Mexico, and as EVP of Store Operations and Development, he oversaw the retailer’s operations team, including Dollar General retail stores, Mi Super Dollar General in Mexico, corporate store operations, asset protection, and real estate.

“As Steve played a critical role in the strategic expansion into Mexico as our first international market, I am confident his extensive knowledge of our business and its operations makes him uniquely qualified for this new role as executive vice president of Strategy and Development,” said Todd Vasos, Dollar General’s CEO.

As EVP of Store Operations, Herrmann will now lead Dollar General’s field operations teams responsible for operating the Goodlettsville, Tenn.-based company’s more than 20,000 stores in 48 states.

Dollar General is focusing on a store refresh in 2025 instead of spending on full remodels. Called Project Elevate, the goal is to bolster performance in portions of the mature store base that are not yet old enough to be part of the full remodel pipeline. These projects will include nearly all of the same assortment updates as full remodels, except for cooler expansion and the addition of produce.

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Some features of Project Elevate include optimizations and expansions across the store, as well as updated adjacencies and physical asset refreshes in the most prominent customer-facing areas of the store.

During its third-quarter earnings call in early December, Vasos said shoppers are still showing signs of struggling with their budgets. For the third quarter, net sales for DG increased 5% year over year to $10.2 billion, and same-store sales rose 1.3%.

However, the positive results did not prevent the discount retailer from decreasing its outlook for the full fiscal year. Dollar General is now projecting net sales growth in the range of about 4.8% to 5.1%, a slight decrease from the initial expectation of approximately 4.7% to 5.3%. Same-store growth is expected to fall in the range of about 1.1% to 1.4%, down from the previous expectation of 1% to 1.6%.