Corporate Governance

New York -- Office Depot announced that Kevin Peters had resigned from his role as president of the retailer’s North American division, effective immediately.

Arlington, Va. -- The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) announced that Garth Gasse has joined the association as director of retail operations, asset protection and Lisa LaBruno has been promoted to SVP retail operations.

Wal-Mart Asia CEO Scott Price is among the feature speakers participating in this year’s World Retail Congress event scheduled for March 19-21 in Singapore.

Top food executives at Walmart are presumably in the crosshairs of Safeway recruiters now that longtime chairman and CEO Steve Burd has announced his retirement.

Walmart SVP Lev Khasis was elevated to the new role of president and CEO of new formats for Walmart International, according Reuters and Bloomberg reports citing a Walmart spokesman.

Khasis joined Walmart in 2011 after working for Russian retailer X5, a company Walmart reportedly had an interest in acquiring. The spokesman said Khasis will focus on developing store concepts that can be deployed across markets.

Detroit, Mich. — Greeting card publisher Avanti Press has named Kari Knowlton as its new director of business development.

Founded by Rick Ruffner in 1980, Avanti Press publishes the Avanti and A*Press greeting card collections. The Detroit-based publisher’s everyday and seasonal card collections are carried in leading regional and national retail outlets as well as independent retail outlets throughout the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and other countries worldwide.

BELLEVUE, Wash. — Coinstar, a leading provider of automated retail solutions, has appointed its current CFO J. Scott Di Valerio as new CEO, effective April 1. At that time, Di Valerio will also be appointed to the Coinstar board of directors.

Di Valerio succeeds Paul Davis, who is retiring on March 31, and will remain a member of the board until then.

Di Valerio has been CFO at Coinstar since 2010, and has overseen Coinstar's corporate information technology and supply chain functions.

Retailer and supplier consolidation has led to the demise of some conventional trade shows, but that’s not the case with the Sweets & Snacks Expo.

Record attendance is expected at the event scheduled for May 21 through May 23 in Chicago due in part to format changes by event organizer the National Confectioners Association and the strength of merchandise categories represented at the mega event.

Kansas City-based advertising agency Barkley was hired by Big Lots to help the closeout retailer with a broad range of marketing and brand strategy initiatives.

Barkley will provide Big Lots with full-service advertising and marketing duties including brand strategy, and broadcast, print and in-store executions. Barkley will also partner with Big Lots on web strategy and execution.

Nineteen of the nation’s leading retail and CPG companies received perfect scores on the 2013 Corporate Equality Index compiled by the Human Rights Campaign.

The Human Rights Campaign released its 2013 Corporate Equality Index, which gives companies ratings of up to 100% based on their policies regarding LGBT employees and also released a buyer's guide for LGBT consumers. According to the equality advocacy group, a total of 1,848 companies were invited to submit applications, of those 530 actually did so and of those 252 received scores of 100%.