Colleen Lindholz, president of Kroger Health, will retire after 31 years with the Cincinnati-based grocer, the company confirmed Thursday. Lindholz joined Kroger in 1995 as a staff pharmacist in the Cincinnati-Dayton division and rose through a series of pharmacy roles before being named division president in 2017.
Her tenure reshaped how the nation's largest traditional grocer approaches health and wellness at retail. Lindholz is credited as the architect of Kroger's Food as Medicine strategy — a push to use the chain's extensive grocery and pharmacy footprint to connect nutrition with clinical outcomes — and with launching the Nourishing Change movement, which extended that framework into community programming.
Building a Health Platform
Before leading Kroger Health, Lindholz served as president and CEO of the Little Clinic, the in-store clinic brand Kroger operates, a role she assumed in 2015. That assignment came after her 2013 promotion to director of Pharmacy Sales and Marketing. The career arc — from bench pharmacist to clinic executive to division president — mirrors a broader industry trend in which supermarket and c-store operators are deepening clinical and wellness services inside their four walls, betting that convenient access to pharmacists and dietitians drives basket size and loyalty alongside better health outcomes.
Kroger's pharmacy network spans more than 2,200 locations, making its health division a meaningful player not just in traditional grocery but in the broader dispensed and health-adjacent categories that convenience and food retail operators are increasingly targeting. Under Lindholz's watch, Kroger Family of Pharmacies earned recognition as a Forbes Best Customer Service Company, and Kroger Health was named Mass Market Retailer's Retailer of the Year in 2022.
What Comes Next
Kroger has not announced a successor. Mary Ellen Adcock, the company's chief marketing and merchandising officer, offered praise for Lindholz's community focus. "Throughout her career, she championed ways to help families live healthier lives by eating better-for-them foods," Adcock said.
Beyond her Kroger role, Lindholz chaired the National Association of Chain Drug Stores and currently serves as executive chair of the American Heart Association's Heart Mini and chair of the Easterseals Redwood Board of Directors in Greater Cincinnati. She earned her pharmacy degree from the University of Cincinnati.
The leadership transition comes as Kroger continues integrating health and nutrition more tightly into its merchandising strategy — an approach that resonates across channels, including convenience, where operators are looking for credible ways to move beyond roller grill staples toward better-for-you foodservice and wellness offerings.
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.
