Senior Management

Doug Jones

BComm, Accounting, Tax, Auditing, Information Systems, CA(SA)
CEO, Metcash Group

Doug Jones is an experienced executive with extensive wholesale, retail and eCommerce experience. He spent 14 years with the Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed Massmart group which is majority-owned by Walmart Inc. It has leading market positions in wholesale food, liquor, home improvement and general merchandise.

Before joining Metcash Doug was CEO and Senior Vice President of Massmart Wholesale, which includes ‘big box’ format food, liquor, and general merchandise stores serving retail, commercial and wholesale customers; cash and carry stores; buying groups that service wholesale and independent retail customers; and a number of eCommerce platforms.

Doug is a qualified Chartered Accountant and has previously held senior finance positions in Makro SA, Amalgamated Beverages Industries Limited and The South African Breweries, all in Johannesburg, CocaCola Enterprises in Canada, and Deloitte in both Canada and South Africa.

Alistair Bell

B.Ec (Sydney), CA, MAICD
CFO, Metcash Group

Alistair joined Metcash in 2020 as the Group CFO.

Alistair has extensive capital-markets experience and executive leadership in managing international organisations with portfolio of businesses.

Alistair has held various CFO, COO and strategy positions in a range of industries with ASX listed, private equity and multi-national corporations. Most recently, he was the Group CFO of GrainCorp for almost 10 years. Alistair has broad experience as a Non- Executive Director, including as Chairman of Audit & Risk Committees.

Simon Burton

B.A (Hons), Economics
Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer, Metcash Group

Simon is a globally experienced executive with over 25 years’ experience focused on FMCG and retail businesses, strategy and transformation. He worked most recently with Lion Nathan as Group Strategy and Corporate Development Director. Prior to that worked across strategy and business transformation at Partners in Performance and Momentum Partners (now part of KPMG)

Prior to emigrating to Australia in 2010, Simon worked in London for Bupa as Customer Proposition and Strategy Director building on his experience as a Director in investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort’s European food, consumer and retail group and as a strategy consultant with McKinsey & Co serving consumer and retail clients.

Grant Ramage

CEO, Metcash Food (Incoming May 2023)

Grant was promoted to CEO of Metcash Food in 2023 after four years as Executive General Manager, Merchandise, and a further four years as State General Manager, Supermarkets in WA. He has been a key contributor to the strong performance of both the Food pillar and the IGA network in recent years, working closely with leading retailers and suppliers to improve IGA’s competitive position and deliver sustainable growth.

Prior to joining Metcash in 2015, Grant held several senior roles at Coles Liquor across merchandise, marketing, operational leadership, business development, critical projects, and exclusive brands. His earlier career included 10 years with Oddbins, the UK’s then pre-eminent Wine Merchant, initially in retail stores and then in buying.

Chris Baddock

GradCertBus,
CEO, Australian Liquor Marketers

Chris joined Metcash in July 2019 as CEO of Australia Liquor Marketers (ALM).

Chris has over 30 years of experience in FMCG including Lion and Woolworths. Most recently Chris was Director of Pinnacle Drinks, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Woolworths’ Endeavour Drinks Group.

Annette Welsh

CEO, Independent Hardware Group

Annette joined Metcash in 2010 and held the roles of GM of Operations and GM Merchandise prior to being appointed CEO of Independent Hardware Group in 2020.

Annette has global experience across retail and wholesale and prior to joining Metcash worked for Marks & Spencer and IBM.

Danielle Jenkinson

MBA (Mkt), BDes (Vis Comm)
Chief People & Culture Officer

In 2023 Danielle was promoted to Group Chief People & Culture Officer, from her previous roles as General Manager of Marketing and Executive General Manager of Retail, Metcash Food. Prior to joining Metcash in 2018, Danielle held positions with Woolworths, Goodman Fielder and L’Oreal UK. Danielle has over 20 years of industry experience with suppliers, retailers, and wholesalers. She’s held a variety of leadership roles spanning sales, commercial, marketing and operations, in both Australia and UK markets. .

Julie Hutton

B Asian Studies (Viet), LLB, LLN, GAICD
Chief Legal, Risk and Compliance Officer & Company Secretary

Julie was appointed as Company Secretary on 6 June 2016 and promoted to Chief Legal, Risk and Compliance Officer in June 2022. She joined Metcash from law firm Baker & McKenzie, where she was a partner who specialised in mergers & acquisitions, private equity and corporate restructures. Julie is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and was formerly a Non-executive Director of AVCAL, a national association which represents the private equity and venture capital industries in Australia.

Marij Kouwenhoven

M.Sc. Engineering
Chief Technology Officer

Prior to joining Metcash in October 2022, Marij was the SVP and Global CIO of The Bountiful Company (now part of Nestle Health Science). Previously, she worked at Dairy Farmers of America, where she led a comprehensive program of simplification and optimisation to deliver expanded services and value to the 'fiercely independent' member network.

Marij's professional career started in the early days of SAP in Germany, and she has held several IT leadership roles over the years covering IT strategy, applications modernisation, IT business operations improvement, shared service, agile transformation, cloud migration, data management, security/compliance, digital commerce, and analytics.