ZAANDAM, THE NETHERLANDS — Farhan Siddiqi has been named chief digital officer for Ahold Delhaize, which operates supermarket chains including Food Lion, Giant Food, Hannaford and Stop & Shop. He also will join the company’s executive committee.
In his new role, Mr. Siddiqi is tasked with driving digital transformation and innovation across Ahold Delhaize’s local brands, the company said, focusing on loyalty, data analytics and personalization.
Mr. Siddiqi joins Ahold Delhaize from McDonald’s Corp., where he was most recently chief digital officer. Before that, he was vice-president of global digital experience. During his time with the fast-food giant, he led the restaurant chain’s digital transformation, including the launch of mobile commerce in 20,000 restaurants, a new mobile app and the upgrade of self-service ordering kiosks.
Before joining McDonald’s, Mr. Siddiqi held leadership positions at Bank of America, including senior vice-president of digital banking. Prior to that, he spent four years with Target, most recently as director of product design for financial and retail services. Earlier in his career, Mr. Siddiqi was a business solutions leader with General Electric.
“I’m thrilled to welcome Farhan to Ahold Delhaize,” said Frans Muller, president and chief executive officer of Ahold Delhaize. “With his knowledge of the digital customer experience in a wide variety of industries, he will help further accelerate Ahold Delhaize’s digital transformation, a key element in our ‘Leading Together’ strategy. Farhan will drive best practice sharing in digital and e-commerce across our great local brands while leveraging our global scale, supporting us in doubling net consumer online sales to around €7 billion by 2021.”