Focal Systems Hires Retail Veteran and Former Kroger Executive Suzy Monford to Serve as Chief Strategy and Marketplace Officer

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--In order to better serve the retail industry with state of the art AI and to couple that with optimal operations and processes, Focal Systems is proud to announce the hiring of Suzy Monford, former Kroger executive, as Chief Strategy and Marketplace Officer.

With more than 30 years’ experience in the grocery and restaurant industries, Monford brings a passion for innovating go-to-market strategies and employing cutting edge technologies that can transform the global food and retail sectors. She will be based in Austin, TX, heading the company’s office there.

“Since 2015 our team has worked with Suzy as a customer, advisor and friend to guide our product roadmap and strategy. Her advice has gotten us to where we are today. She is the smartest person in retail we have had the pleasure of working with. We are thrilled she has elected to join us at this pivotal moment in our company’s growth,” said Francois Chaubard, Focal Systems Founder and CEO. “Her leadership experience as a retailer who’s led e-commerce and technology innovations in the U.S., U. K., and Australia are hugely valuable to us and our customers as we grow around the world.”

“Throughout my career as an operator, marketer and customer experience innovator, I’ve been fortunate to work with best-in-class leaders, so I’m thrilled to join Francois and the Focal team at this moment in our industry’s evolution,” said Monford. “The need to reimagine and rebuild the world’s food economy has never been more vital—to the stores and communities we serve, and more broadly, to the environment.”

After a brief stint with PCC, Monford joins Focal following three years with Kroger. As Group Vice President of eCommerce, she helped create and lead go-to-market strategies for Kroger’s e-commerce partnership with Ocado into new markets across the U.S. During her tenure with Kroger, Monford also served as Group Vice President of Fresh, and President of QFC.

Monford began her supermarket career working for a decade in leadership roles for H-E-B. After H-E-B, she gained international experience with senior executive roles with both Woolworths and Coles, and returned to the U.S. to become CEO of Andronico’s in San Francisco, a company she is credited for turning around as she led its successful acquisition by Albertson’s Safeway.

About Focal Systems

Founded in 2015 in San Francisco out of Stanford’s Computer Vision Lab, Focal Systems is the industry leader in retail automation. Our mission is to automate and optimize brick and mortar retail with state-of-the-art deep learning and AI. We have pioneered the world’s first “Self-Driving Store”- OS that revolutionizes how stores are run. Focal has raised more than $40m to date and scaled solutions on three continents in hundreds of stores, with thousands of cameras deployed. Learn more at: https://focal.systems