Simon Margulies is an audacious and good choice as Axfood CEO

In the Swedish retail market, women hold two top domestic positions: the CEOs of Axfood and ICA are both women, Simone Margulies and Nina Jönsson. This is a great achievement in a traditionally very male-dominated industry. 👏

Margulies was perhaps a slightly surprising choice as the CEO of Axfood. She has run Axfood’s Hemköp chain for the last four years. In recent years, Hemköp has been shadowed by the phenomenal rise of Willy’s.

For most of the 2000s, Hemköp struggled to grow. In fact, the chain declined rapidly during the late 2000s and early 2010s. Since then, the growth has rebounded to the levels seen in the early 2000s.

Before the pandemic and during the early pandemic, Hemköp saw revenues decline. The chain started to make a strong return to growth in 2022. Since the start of 2022, the chain has grown almost consistently with double-digit growth for the last six quarters (once 9,6%).

This is a strong result from a more quality-driven retailer during a time of rapidly rising inflation.

Challenging time for Axfood

Ms Margulies starts at a challenging time, as the market leader ICA has woken up from its long lull. For most of the last five years, ICA has been losing market share, especially to Willy’s. However, last year, the company started a major price offensive against Willy’s. It helped ICA eventually win market share. At the same time, the rapid growth rate of Willy’s has declined back to more normal levels.

Willy’s still wins market share, but ICA will push hard to challenge that. It is up to Ms Margulies to manage that difficult competitive situation.

In this challenging situation, it was a smart move from the board of Axfood to select an insider with a proven track record to lead the charge. After all, also Willy’s leadership has changed recently. Too much change in the top positions could have easily derailed the company to lose focus momentarily as new leadership is installed.