Albertsons Taps Former Amazon Exec to Lead Pharmacy and Health

Albertsons Cos. has added a new executive to its leadership team from Amazon as Omer Gajial joins the Boise, Idaho-based retailer as its new SVP of pharmacy and health.

Gajial since May 2018 was general manager of category development for Amazon, and prior to that was its softlines and consumables GM serving its Marketplace sellers beginning in 2016, according to Gajial's LinkedIn bio. Prior to that, Gajial spent more than 15 years in various roles at PepsiCo, including more than three years as a global strategy VP on its Walmart team.

Albertsons CEO Vivek Sankaran is also a veteran of Pepsi. Since joining Albertsons in 2019, Sankaran has made a number of high-profile leadership hires from outside its business.

In a LinkedIn post, Gajial thanked co-workers at the Seattle e-commerce giant. “While I will miss working with an incredible group of Amazonians, I am equally excited to reframe, scale and build new health and pharmacy solutions for millions of customers.”