Valerie Jabbar, senior vice president of Retail Divisions at The Kroger Co., retired in May 2026 after 38 years with the Cincinnati-based grocery giant — a tenure that began on the store floor and ended at one of the company's most senior operational posts.

Jabbar joined Kroger's Fry's division in 1987 as a clerk, then worked her way through a succession of leadership positions that touched nearly every layer of retail grocery operations. Her path included stints as a district manager, vice president of Merchandising, division president of Ralphs, and group vice president of Center Store Merchandising before she was elevated to SVP of Retail Divisions in 2021. That breadth of experience — spanning store-level execution, merchandising strategy, and multi-unit oversight — represents the kind of cross-functional career development that operators across the food retail and hospitality sectors frequently cite as a competitive differentiator.

For food and beverage suppliers, Jabbar's departure is worth tracking. As SVP of Retail Divisions, she held influence over the operational direction of Kroger's sprawling division structure, which shapes everything from shelf placement to fresh department investment. Leadership transitions at that level can signal shifts in category priorities or vendor relationships, making her succession a detail that consumer packaged goods and beverage industry players will want to monitor.

Jabbar's career arc also carries a broader industry lesson. Her rise from hourly clerk to C-suite is increasingly rare in an era when grocery and restaurant hospitality operators often recruit senior leaders externally. Her 38-year run at a single company underscores the long-term value of internal mobility programs and frontline-to-leadership pipelines — a model that workforce strategists across food service and retail have been pushing chains to reinvest in as labor markets remain tight.

Kroger has not announced a successor to Jabbar's role. The company operates one of the largest supermarket networks in the United States, with divisions that include Ralphs, Fred Meyer, Harris Teeter, and King Soopers, among others.

Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.