Dollar General’s Sanja Krajnovic gets expanded store operations role

Dollar General has promoted Sanja Krajnovic to senior vice president of store operations, enlarging her role to lead operations of approximately half of the company’s more than 17,000 stores.

The appointment marks a significant increase in responsibility for Krajnovic, Dollar General said in announcing her promotion late yesterday. She joined the deep discount retailer in November 2020 as divisional vice president, directing store operations for about 2,400 stores in the Midwest. 

“We are excited to announce Sanja’s internal promotion, as she has made an immediate impact by building cross-functional partnerships throughout the business, including store operations, supply chain, merchandising and others,” Steve Sunderland, executive vice president of store operations at Dollar General, said in a statement.

Dollar General noted that Krajnovic (left) has 20-plus year of retail industry experience, including expertise in supply chain, logistics and store operations. Before coming to the Goodlettsville, Tenn.-based company, she spent 24 years at Target Corp., most recently as group vice president of global supply chain and logistics. During five years in that post, she directed multi-site functions across retail operations, food, global supply chain and logistics. Prior to that, she served as group director of global supply chain and logistics, senior site director, regional senior director for food operations and district senior store director at Target.

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“In addition to Sanja’s ability to think strategically while staying focused on execution, her commitment to and passion for team development will further the Company’s employee engagement efforts, support our track record of internal promotions and facilitate an environment for employee career growth,” Sunderland added. “We look forward to seeing Sanja’s contributions to our store teams and congratulate her on the promotion.”

Overall, Dollar General operated 17,426 stores in 46 states as of April 30, 2021. The company opened 1,000 new stores, remodeled 1,670 stores and relocated 110 stores during its 2020 fiscal year ended Jan. 29. For 2021, Dollar General has 2,900 real estate projects in the pipeline, with plans to open 1,050 new stores, remodel 1,750 stores and relocate 100 stores.

Dollar General came in No. 1 by store count on the Supermarket News Top 50 Retailers list. The company was No. 12 by sales, which jumped 21.6% to $33.75 billion in fiscal 2020.