A&P Names New President

The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. (Montvale, N.J.) has named its chief operating officer, Paul Hertz, as president and ceo, a role vacated by Sam Martin last year.

Greg Mays, who had been filling the void in the interim, will continue to serve as chairman of the board.

Hertz will be responsible for the leadership and strategic direction of the supermarket company, more popularly known as A&P, now a subsidiary of the Warenhandelsgesellschaft KG (dba the Tengelmann Group, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany). Those responsibilities, the company said, will include “oversight and implementation of all business and marketing decisions, as well as support of ongoing growth initiatives.”

“Paul’s mix of operational, managerial and retail experience makes him the ideal candidate to lead the company as we build on our operational momentum and focus on activities that will achieve projected sales results with a special focus on the needs of the customer,” said Mays.

Hertz is a 27-year retail veteran, beginning in 1987 as a manager with Fred Meyer Inc. (Portland, Ore.), now a division of The Kroger Co. (Cincinnati). Immediately prior to joining A&P, Hertz was executive vp of retail stores for OfficeMax Inc. (Naperville, Ill.)