Albertsons Taps Chad Coester to Lead Own Brands

Albertsons Cos. has promoted Chad Coester to SVP of Own Brands, giving him the charge of leading the company’s portfolio of private label products.

Coester’s most recently was group VP of sales and marketing for Albertsons Own Brands team, which was led by Geoff White, who was named chief merchandising officer of the Boise, Idaho-based retailer earlier this week.

Coester helped lead the effort to optimize and grow the Albertsons private-label portfolio to nearly 11,000 products across 550 categories. He also helped lead the success of national marketing and merchandising campaigns that highlight key growth brands, such as O Organics and Open Nature.

Chad Coester

“Chad brings infectious energy to everything he does. His versatile background and deep commitment to innovation will serve him well as he leads our extraordinarily talented Own Brands team,” White said.

Over his career, spent primarily with Safeway, Coester has held positions in procurement, e-commerce operations, and marketing systems and processes. As an executive at Albertsons, he has led manufacturing, merchandising and private label teams. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Business Communication from Sonoma State University in California and participated in the Food Industry Executive Program in 2014 at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.