Craig Gilpin is the Chief Executive Officer at Red River Cooperative Ltd. Prior roles have included Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer at Ironclad Developments, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Corporate Officer at The North West Company, President of Sobeys, Ontario and financial executive roles at A&P Canada.
As a retailer, Craig has worked alongside independent retailers and in mid-and large sized retail organizations, and understands the value, principles and importance of various corporate structures including cooperatives. Throughout his executive management experiences, he has developed broad functional leadership skills with comprehensive capabilities in retail, operations, franchising, supply chain, and finance. The cornerstone of all his roles is guided by his beliefs in developing and delivering an organization’s strategy through aligning and empowering people with integrity.
He has managed global organizations, oversaw the development and execution of complex strategic and technology plans. At the same time, he valued travelling to and listening to local managers and their ideas and issues within their communities. Craig has worked for companies a century old but in retail you must change and evolve quickly to remain competitive as such Craig introduced the first fully automated distribution centre in Canada more than a decade ago, changing the competitive landscape permanently. Craig developed and launched a new banner for Sobeys called Urban Fresh in the core of Toronto. Craig introduced a dark store in Anchorage, Alaska to serve remote Alaskan communities and introduced changes to the supply chain at North West, enabling the Company to track and trace the location of shipments moving by truck, train, plane and pickup truck. Success has always been achieved through careful management that includes active participation, communication, alignment and accountability.
