Costco's Craig Jelinek: Executives who join Costco from other companies "tend not to do well at Costco because they don’t understand the culture." by Elliot Zwiebach at Supermarket News  Read Speech Highlights   Rosalind Brewer Named to "50 Most Powerful Moms" List at Working Mother.  See the top 50 list   Kroger Buys Hiller's Markets at Detroit Free Press. "Kroger, the nation's largest grocery store chain, will turn all but one of Hiller Markets' seven stores into Kroger locations shortly after the sale closes in July." Read more   Hank Meijer explains why Wisconsin stores are critical to expansion [...]

  Walmart's Management Changes Indicate Important New Direction for U.S Stores by Walter Loeb at Forbes. "Greg Foran and Judith McKenna have decided to eliminate the executive level which supervised Walmart East and Walmart West. Julie Murphy’s position will not be filled and Joaquin Gonzales Varela, EVP of Walmart East has left the company. The whole U.S. operation now reports directly to Judith McKenna." Read more   Suppliers wonder how they fit in with Target's new priorities by Kavita Kumar at Star-Tribune. "Those in the “perform” category are probably most in danger of being replaced by one of Target’s private-label [...]

  Target lays off 100 administrative assistants by Kavita Kumar at Star-Tribune. "Previously, many executives at director level and above at Target had an administrative assistant. Now, administrative assistants will work with at least two executives, a company spokeswoman said." Read more   ...Is Target finished with layoffs at its headquarters? Apparently not. by Tom Webb at Pioneer Press. "Transformation is the new reality at Target, and we are in the earliest stages," (Katie) Boylan said in an e-mail. "Like all healthy well-managed companies, we will continue to assess the business and make decisions about the work we do, and [...]