SpartanNash adds 2nd independent director this year

Grocery distributor SpartanNash has continued its board refresh with the appointment of another independent director.

Fred Bentley, president and CEO of truck-trailer equipment manufacturer DexKo Global Inc., has joined the SpartanNash board of directors, effective immediately. His addition expands the board to 10 members, nine of whom are independent.

Bentley marks SpartanNash’s second independent director appointed this year. In late August, the company named Ernst & Young veteran Kerrie MacPherson to the board.

Six of SpartanNash’s directors joined the board in the last five years. Before MacPherson’s appointment, the company had last changed its board in 2022 with the addition of three independent directors, who replaced three directors who didn’t seek re-election. After a months-long proxy battle, SpartanNash shareholders in June 2022 re-elected all nine board members. Then earlier this year, in March, SpartanNash said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that director Matthew Mannelly wouldn’t stand for re-election at the upcoming shareholders meeting in May, where the eight existing board members were re-elected.

New SpartanNash board member Fred Bentley, president and CEO of DexKo Global. / Photo courtesy of SpartanNash

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SpartanNash noted that Bentley brings a breadth of multi-sector industry knowledge to the company.

“Fred is a well-rounded leader and seasoned CEO with global supply-chain, food and manufacturing experience that will be highly additive to our board,” SpartanNash Chairman Douglas Hacker said in a statement. “I am proud of the Board's work to recruit world-class leaders who have relevant domain experience as part of our ongoing refreshment process and journey to grow value for SpartanNash Associates, customers and shareholders."

Bentley has served as president and CEO of DexKo Global since 2016. At the maker of trailer running gear, chassis assemblies and related components, he oversees the Dexter and AL-KO global operations. Before that, he was CEO of Maxion Wheels, a global automotive equipment supplier and the world’s largest wheel company. He came to Maxion after serving as chief operating officer and president of international operations at Hayes Lemmerz, which was acquired by Iochpe-Maxion. His background also includes operational experience from Honeywell/Allied Signal and operational, finance and strategic experience from seven years at Frito-Lay.

SpartanNash distributes to all 50 states through its core food wholesaling business, supplying over 2,100 independent grocery retailers nationwide plus 144 corporate-owned supermarkets in nine Midwestern states, which make up its retail business unit. The company also distributes to 160 military commissaries and over 400 exchanges in the United States and internationally.

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