Acosta Expands e-Commerce Capabilities

After a company restructuring that, among other changes, now distinguishes between client and retailer divisions, Acosta revealed that Brian Christensen has joined the company as SVP of digital strategy and e-commerce.

In this newly created position, Christensen will lead the recently implemented e-commerce division at Acosta, including account teams, business analytics and partnerships. He will serve as the “face” of online retail for the company.

“Our clients realize e-commerce is a big growth driver for their businesses, so they are in a constant state of looking for ways to win — and there’s a lot of emerging technologies out there that can help them do that,” said Christensen. “This expansion of e-commerce at Acosta allows us to provide the right people and expertise to harness these cutting-edge technologies in a way that positively impacts the digital shelf and ultimately drives better outcomes.”

Christensen has more than two decades of experience, with a focus in e-commerce as well as customer and client marketing. He most recently served as customer VP, e-commerce at Kimberly-Clark North America, where he established a vision for e-commerce and built their e-commerce team and infrastructure. His time at Kimberly-Clark also included three other positions dating back to 2007, one of which was serving as the director of customer development for the Safeway business. Christensen received his bachelor’s degree in economics from Brigham Young University, and his master’s in business administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

“e-Commerce has taken the retail industry by storm, but online and brick-and-mortar retail each have their own roles to play, and the same strategies cannot necessarily be applied across the digital and physical shelves,” Acosta president and CEO Steve Matthesen said. “We brought on Brian and created this new division to help fulfill our vision of providing the people who activate and support best-in-class CPG e-commerce solutions.”

Christensen will report directly to chief strategy and transformation officer Steve Kremser. His hiring is part of a larger initiative spearheaded by Matthesen since his September 2016 onboarding.

“There will be winners and losers as e-commerce grows,” Matthesen added, “and we are doing all we can at Acosta to grow along with it to ensure our clients and customers come out on the winning side and one step ahead of their competitors.”