Shopko announced that Jill Soltau has been promoted to the position of President and Chief Merchandising Officer.
Soltau has more than 25 years of experience in the retail industry and joined Shopko in 2007 as Senior Vice President and GMM Apparel and Accessories. In 2009, she was promoted to Executive Vice President and Chief Merchandising Officer. Prior to joining Shopko, Soltau held several senior level positions in merchandising, planning and private brand at Sears and Kohl's department stores. She started her career with Carson Pirie Scott in Milwaukee.
In her expanded role, Soltau will continue to oversee Shopko's merchandising and product development, while assuming responsibility for marketing, e-commerce, inventory management and supply chain departments. Her oversight of these areas will allow Soltau to continue her focus on the development and implementation of the company's merchandising strategy across all of its formats -- Shopko, Shopko Hometown and Shopko.com -- while also uniting branding and marketing strategy under her direction.
"Since joining Shopko, Jill has led the creation of Shopko's highly successful main store merchandising strategy and has been instrumental in the development of the company's growth vehicle, Shopko Hometown," said Mike Bettiga , Shopko Interim CEO, and Chief Operating Officer. "Jill is a committed, driven, and enthusiastic leader. Her promotion to President ensures that our merchandising and marketing strategies, as well as our business goals, are kept in the forefront and will continue to be successfully executed. We are excited to have her take an expanded leadership role at Shopko."
Shopko is owned by affiliates of Sun Capital Partners, Inc., a leading private investment firm focused on leverage buyouts, equity, debt, and other investments in market-leading companies.
About Shopko
Founded in 1962 and headquartered in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Shopko Stores Operating Co., LLC is a $3 billion retailer that operates almost 350 stores in 22 states throughout the Midwest, Mountain, North Central and Pacific Northwest regions. Retail formats include 134 Shopko stores, providing quality name-brand merchandise, great values, pharmacy and optical services in small to mid-sized cities; 5 Shopko Express Rx stores, a convenient neighborhood drugstore concept; 16 Shopko Pharmacy locations; and 176 Shopko Hometown stores, a smaller concept store developed to meet the needs of smaller communities.
