Table of Contents
WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — Randy Edeker is a visionary force who has left an undeniable mark on the retail industry. Since taking the helm of Hy-Vee as chairman and chief executive officer in 2012, Edeker has transformed the regional grocer into a nationally recognized, award-winning retail brand.
Randy Edeker
Edeker, who currently serves as Hy-Vee’s executive chairman of the board and recently transitioned out of his role as president and CEO, has led the $13 billion Midwestern grocery chain for more than a decade. Under his leadership, the company has doubled in size, expanded its footprint, and set the stage for future growth in the years ahead. Under Edeker’s direction, the 94-year-old retailer dramatically expanded its health care focus and increased its investment in food service and meal solutions, and that’s just the beginning.
Edeker has dedicated much of his career to advancing the pharmacy and food retailing industries, serving as chairman of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores and chairman of FMI – The Food Industry Association. In recognition of his many contributions to his company and the industry, Chain Drug Review is honoring Edeker with its Lifetime Achievement Award.
After starting his career at Hy-Vee as a part-time employee in Chariton, Iowa, Edeker quickly rose through the ranks, working at retail stores in four states before getting his first store director assignment at the Columbus, Neb., store in 1993. After just a year at the helm there, he was inducted into the Hy-Vee Hall of Fame as Store Manager of the Year — the first of his three Hall of Fame awards that company leaders would select him for as he continued to climb in his career.
In 1995, Edeker was promoted to Hy-Vee’s corporate staff, overseeing stores in two different geographic regions as a director of operations. In 2004, he was named vice president of marketing for the company; he moved up to senior vice president of retail operations in 2006; and in 2008 he became executive vice president and chief operating officer. Stockholders elected Edeker to succeed Ric Jurgens as president of Hy-Vee in 2009. Three years later, he was elevated to the positions of chairman and CEO, succeeding Jurgens in those roles as well. In 2022, Edeker tapped Jeremy Gosch to take over as CEO, while retaining the position of executive chairman of Hy-Vee’s board of directors.
From his start at the company, Edeker was impressed with Hy-Vee’s culture, which he describes as rooted in honesty, integrity, caring and sharing. It’s a culture that empowers people at all levels of the organization to take ownership in their part of the business.
“Our employees get to make a lot of decisions,” Edeker says. “We promote a culture of responsibility, so if you make a decision, you’re going to own it. That’s a core fundamental of our culture — but it’s also about friendliness, about caring, about family and about trust.”
Edeker acknowledges that managing change could be a challenge in a company with a long history and a long-established culture.
“Early on, I had a conversation with Indra Nooyi, the former PepsiCo CEO,” Edeker says. “She told me that you have to learn to drive an ocean liner like an ocean liner and not like a speedboat. And in the beginning of my tenure, I drove the ocean liner like a speedboat.”
Edeker quickly realized the importance of aligning with the already established culture while addressing the need for evolution and staying ahead of the curve. That approach is evident in many of Hy-Vee’s initiatives.
Under his leadership, the employee-owned company has made substantial strides in promoting a Best Place to Work environment that centers on employee engagement and training and education for its 75,000 employees. Edeker has also worked to promote more women to leadership positions within the organization.
“I’ve really worked hard to promote more women within Hy-Vee, which is easy to do because we have such great women leaders,” Edeker says. “We’ve also worked to expand the ownership of Hy-Vee and make more employees stockholders. As an employee-owned company, we want more people to own part of the Hy-Vee dream.”
Giving back to its communities and being a company of great purpose is another area that Edeker has championed throughout his career.
“We want to be a company of great purpose, and one that takes action,” Edeker says.
Since 2011, Hy-Vee’s One Step program has funded more than 20.3 million meals through Meals from the Heartland, 820,000 trees through Arbor Day Foundation and 130 wells through various nonprofit organizations to serve people and communities in need around the world. Hy-Vee has also created its own Disaster Relief fleet that it deploys to communities around the nation to provide immediate aid following natural disasters. And, most recently, Hy-Vee has increased its efforts to fight food insecurity through its ongoing 100 Million Meals Challenge in partnership with Feeding America.
Strategizing for the future on the business side, Edeker has heightened the company’s focus on pharmacy services and strategic partnerships, including its most recent ownership stake in Wahlburgers — as well as expansion opportunities into new markets.
Aaron Wiese, who was named president of Hy-Vee last year, oversees the company’s health and wellness operations, subsidiaries, distribution and technology. He describes Edeker’s customer-first mindset as one of the key elements of his leadership style.
“Randy’s done a great job challenging our thinking to always be focused on where customers are going and what Hy-Vee could offer them to make their lives easier, healthier and happier,” Wiese says. “He’s always pushing us to be focused on the customer first, whether that’s in areas like health care, e-commerce or food service.”
Donna Tweeten, who became the first woman to be elected president at Hy-Vee this past year, oversees Hy-Vee’s marketing, merchandising, private brands, digital development and retail media. Tweeten says part of Edeker’s legacy will be putting Hy-Vee on a bigger, national stage.
“We’re operating like a national retailer in terms of our attitude, our style, our tone, our behavior,” says Tweeten. “There aren’t a lot of retailers of our size — and specifically from our region — that would have been able to sign Patrick Mahomes to an endorsement deal. Randy has always had this idea that anything is possible. And when it seemed impossible, his direction was, ‘Let’s find a way to make it possible.’ ”
Edeker’s strategic approach involves staying attuned to customer lifestyles, tracking trends and being unafraid to innovate. While acknowledging the inevitability of failure in some ventures, he emphasized the importance of embracing failure as a learning opportunity. The company’s forays into food service — including its in-store HyChi department, which is consistently rated among the best Chinese restaurants of any kind in the nation — and its unique store designs are testaments to this fearless approach to innovation.
Gosch, Hy-Vee’s current CEO and vice chairman, noted that Randy’s visionary approach to solving problems begins with a lot of reading, researching and studying of consumer trends and patterns.
“Randy is always focused on figuring out what’s changing, what’s going to happen in the environment, and what we need to do about it — not just today — but also three or four years from now,” Gosch says.
Gosch cited Hy-Vee’s pharmacy fulfillment centers as an example of that approach.
“Randy was seeing a lot of things happening in pharmacy,” Gosch says. “Between reimbursement rates and DIR fees, pharmacists’ scope of practice, and all the abilities that pharmacies have to serve the patient — Randy was thinking about how we could get ahead of those challenges using automation to fill scripts and count pills so our pharmacists could focus their attention on serving patients at the top of their license.”
Edeker says his involvement in the leadership of NACDS has proven beneficial for Hy-Vee, contributing to the company’s influence within the health care landscape.
“NACDS is deeply involved with government relations and the legislation that governs our industry that we have to be involved in,” Edeker says. “NACDS offers a very effective way to be part of the national leadership in an area that is really important to Hy-Vee.”
Edeker, who announced plans to retire in August, says he is not really thinking about his legacy as he prepares to step down. Instead, he plans to focus on his two daughters and seven grandkids, and his wife, Dawn, who he describes as “the absolute light of my life.” He adds that he is confident that his successor, Gosch, will keep Hy-Vee on a growth path.
“There are massive opportunities ahead,” Edeker says. “Retail media is definitely a focus of ours and an area where we’re ahead of most. There are a lot of aspects of Hy-Vee — from our pharmacy to our c-store chain and our wine and spirits chain — that are positioned to grow. We’ve made a lot of acquisitions this year, and we plan to make more, and that will be another part of our growth. I believe Hy-Vee will continue to grow and be strong moving forward.”
