Message from our CEO continued
Ahold
Annual Report 2010
Group at a glance
Performance
Governance
Fi nancials
Investors
Larry Benjamin retired as our COO of Ahold USA at the end of January this year. He joined the
company in 2003 as the CEO of our former subsidiary, U.S. Foodservice, and oversaw its
recovery and sale in 2007. Following this, he led the successful repositioning of our retail
operations in the United States and was a member of the Corporate Executive Board since 2008.
On behalf of everyone at Ahold, I would like to thank John and Larry for their strong leadership
and the tremendous contribution they made during their time with us.
In addition to these two Board changes, in September, we announced the appointment of Carl
Schlicker as our new COO of Ahold USA and Sander van der Laan as our new COO for Ahold
Europe, both reporting to me.
On a sad note, in January this year we said goodbye to Albert Heijn, the grandson of the founder
of our company. His death marks the passing of the last member of the Heijn family to lead our
company and the end of a remarkable chapter in food retail. During his lifetime, Albert changed
the way people in the Netherlands ate and shopped and he took our company from an
exclusively Dutch supermarket business to a major international food retailer. He grew the
company from €18 million in annual sales when he started in 1949 to €8 billion when he retired
forty years later. Albert's entrepreneurial spirit and achievements will have a lasting impact - both
in the Netherlands and around the world.
One of Albert's priorities was to do the right thing for customers and others whose lives the
business touched. I feel the same way and am particularly pleased with the progress we made in
our key corporate responsibility priority areas - healthy living, sustainable trade, climate action,
and community engagement - over the course of the year. We also made significant steps in
defining how we carry out and measure our activities and in setting clear, measurable targets for
all our corporate responsibility priorities between now and 2015. You can read more about our
strategy and achievements in our 2010 Corporate Responsibility Report.
It is an exciting time for the food retail industry and for Ahold. Rapid changes in the way people
shop and the ever-increasing demand for new products and services present great opportunities
for retailers. In the year ahead, we will continue to broaden our offering by introducing new and
innovative products and a greater range of services, to win the hearts of customers and satisfy
more of their daily needs.
Everything we have achieved over the past year is thanks to the passion and commitment of the
more than 210,000 employees in our stores, distribution centers, and offices on both sides of the
Atlantic. I, along with my colleagues on the Corporate Executive Board, thank them for their
dedication, hard work, and unrelenting focus on doing what is right for the customer. As we look
to the coming year, I am confident that we will continue to delight and surprise those who shop
with us, grow the business, and increase shareholder value.
Dick Boer
Chief Executive Officer
March 2, 2011
