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When Jason Buechel took over as CEO of Whole Foods in 2022, he faced a unique challenge. The company’s prior CEO, John Mackey, had co-founded the grocery store chain and led it for more than 40 years. That leadership transition was not only a personal challenge for Buechel—it was also a significant adjustment for the entire company.
In this episode, Buechel shares how he addressed employees’ concerns and worked to maintain the company’s culture and core values. He also discusses why he focuses on internal leadership and supporting the organization’s growth.
This episode originally aired as part of HBR’s New World of Work video series in September 2023. Here it is.
ADI IGNATIUS: Welcome to Harvard Business Review’s the New World of Work. I’m Adi Ignatius, editor in chief of HBR. Each week on this show, I interview a CEO, a thought leader, or somebody else who can inspire and educate us on the changing dynamics of the workplace. Our viewers come from all over the world, and they work at everything from Fortune 500 corporations to fledgling startups, from family businesses to nonprofits. The aim of our show is to provide insights for everyone as they navigate this transitional moment in how we organize ourselves in the business world.
So, my guest today is Jason Buechel, the CEO of Whole Foods. He has been at the iconic supermarket chain for 10 years and became its CEO last year, taking over from co-founder John Mackey. We’ll talk about the challenges of succeeding a larger-than-life executive, about what it’s like to be a subsidiary of a giant like amazon.com, and about how Whole Foods is coping with changes in the business environment, from climate change to hybrid work and more. So, Jason, welcome.
JASON BUECHEL: Hey, Adi. How are you doing today?
ADI IGNATIUS: I am fine. Glad to have you on the show. Let’s just jump right in. Let’s start with your transition to CEO. It’s always interesting to me, and I think to our readers, how a founder CEO transitions to the next generation of leadership. So I’d love to hear you talk about that challenge and what you’ve tried to bring to that role.
JASON BUECHEL: Yeah, well, one of the fortunes I had was working with John over the course of nine years and had about an 11-month time frame to do our transition. And so it was a great opportunity for me to be able to jump into the role. I had a lot of great support from John, where he really wanted me to help take on some of those responsibilities over the course of the 11 months. So I was prepared when my day was to step formally into the role. And stepping into shoes like that is, also, a really difficult process for our team members. John was our CEO for 42 years. And ultimately, that’s what they knew. And so for me, it was really important to connect with our team members, make sure that we could provide a vision and that they understood the elements of Whole Foods Market, our culture, our core values, our higher purpose. They were going to remain intact. And my job was to help take those responsibilities and support us being able to keep Whole Foods and the important elements intact.
ADI IGNATIUS: So at HBR, we love to give people practical takeaways. So you’re not the first, and you won’t be the last to succeed a CEO, an iconic CEO, who’s been in place for many years. What’s your advice to people who are in your role and coming in? What have you learned from the process that you’d like to share?
JASON BUECHEL: Well, one, I think it’s important to understand the voice of the team members. What are what are they looking for in that transition, and what’s important for them? For me, I took an opportunity over those 11 months to do something we call the Whole Conversations Tour, which gave me some great insights for what was on the mind of our team members. And in some cases, they had fears with John’s retirement of, are there going to be major changes to our culture or our quality standards? What are things going to look like going forward? And so [AUDIO OUT] our stakeholders, whether it was suppliers or customers, community partners. I think it’s important to understand the voice of all of those stakeholders as you’re making the transition. I think the other part I would give advice on is making sure that you’re not just trying to be that leader. For me, John and I, we lead in very different ways. And that’s why we we’re so complementary in working together. So I think it’s also about being authentic to yourself and at the same time, making sure that you’re supporting the company and where it needs to go.
ADI IGNATIUS: So for our audience who’s watching this, if you have questions of your own for Jason, please put them into the chat. I’ll try to get to some audience questions later. Jason, your path to CEO, I think, is not typical. Maybe no one’s is, but maybe yours, in particular, isn’t. Talk a little bit about your past and your life and career and how it ended up in this role.
JASON BUECHEL: Yeah, so I’ve had the opportunity to work in retail since 2000. My first set of experiences really came through consulting. I worked for Accenture and had an opportunity to work with a lot of leading retailers and grocers, both here in the US and around the world. And for me, it was that passion I had in working within the retail space. And that career allowed me to connect with several executives at Whole Foods Market, our former co-CEO Walter Rob and CFO Glenda Flanagan. And as they were looking to hire a new CIO or CTO, they had reached out to me. I had provided some names of some clients that I thought would be good, folks to go for the job. And they reached back out and said, why aren’t you putting your name on? And we’d really love for you to consider joining Whole Foods.
And so, I came to Austin, spent two days here, and just really had an amazing appreciation for the fact that the higher purpose and core values just weren’t words on a wall. They were being lived out day to day. And for me, that was the awakening of this is the right place for me to go work and spend the rest of my career. And as I joined Whole Foods, I was responsible for technology, as well as our digital businesses, so helping stand up both our delivery and pickup businesses, which we hadn’t yet launched. And during that time frame, I also helped looked at ways for us to establish some organizations and support practices we didn’t have before, like our first operations support team. And as I spent more time at Whole Foods, I picked up additional responsibilities in areas like Team Member Services, or what other companies would call HR and eventually, stepped into the chief operating officer role in January of 2019. And going through that role really helped prepare me in taking the next step up to the CEO position.
ADI IGNATIUS: So I was thinking about your past even before that. I mean, when I first got in contact with your staff, they said, oh, he’s a cheese guy. You have to understand that. Can you talk about that a little bit?
JASON BUECHEL: Oh yeah, absolutely. I’ve had a long connection to food. I’ve been gardening since I was 7. My dad actually was a cheese maker. Both of my parents grew up on dairy farms. So I was in rural Wisconsin. And so we just have an interesting connection to our food systems. And couldn’t be happier to have the opportunity today to be in a role where I can help influence and support our food systems for future generations.
ADI IGNATIUS: So I want to ask you about what it means for Whole Foods to report up to a giant, in this case, amazon.com. What has that meant? What does that mean to you and your role or to the company, to report up to a big, big holding company like Amazon?
JASON BUECHEL: Well, I think we are very privileged in a number of ways of having that. First and foremost, one of the things that we’ve been really excited about over the last six years is we’re really focused on the long term of Whole Foods Market and being able to have the support of Amazon providing us with capabilities that allow us to serve our customer in the most amazing ways possible. And whether it’s through technology or other services, being able to help create great customer experiences is one of the things that Amazon has just been so helpful for us as Whole Foods Market. Also, we’re helping redefine, what is grocery going to look like in this space? And so having a parent company that has resources and expertise that we can plug into and utilize to support Whole Foods is really important. And I also appreciate the same things where we’re able to be Whole Foods and so be able to maintain our culture. I mentioned earlier, we still have the same higher purpose and core values. And so while we’re part of Amazon, it’s really a complementary relationship, where we bring the very best of what we can offer, and we’re able to plug in and leverage the very best within Amazon.
ADI IGNATIUS: Yeah, and look, I think we have emotional connections to the brands that we like. And I’m curious. What do you say to people who love the Whole Foods brand and its brand promise, but don’t feel the same emotion toward Amazon?
JASON BUECHEL: Well, I think, in some cases, it’s helping those customers understand some of the benefits that they can use, that Amazon can support them, as well, whether it’s providing a quicker checkout in one of our stores, using Amazon One, or ultimately, some of the support and work, where we’re collaboratively looking at ways by which we’re going to help meet our environmental and sustainability commitments. And that’s something that a lot of our customers care about and something we’re able to leverage as Whole Foods and supporting our core value around the environment.
ADI IGNATIUS: So what do you see as Whole Foods biggest challenges? Is it is it simply to grow as quickly as possible, to add new stores? Or do you think about it in some other way?
JASON BUECHEL: Well, for us, it’s really figuring out, how do we expand our reach and our impact? So one of the ways we’ll do that, obviously, is adding new stores. But it’s also finding new ways that we can serve customers. One of the things that we launched earlier this year is the ability to have items directly shipped to our customers’ homes through Amazon. So we currently have over 800 products available within our exclusive brands, our 365 brand, as an example. And that’s something that for us, we can serve more customers in new ways. We’re also really focused on ways that we can help support our higher purpose in nourishing people on the planet. So for us, it’s not just growth for growth’s sake, but it’s, how do we help be the force for change? And one of the things that I’m really passionate about is regenerative agriculture, as an example. And this is an opportunity that’s, ultimately, going to allow us to take the products that we know and love today and make sure that we can continue to produce those for future generations.
ADI IGNATIUS: Yeah, talk about that. For people who aren’t familiar with the idea of regenerative products or agriculture, can you talk a little bit about what that means and maybe with an example of something that is part of your supply chain right now?
JASON BUECHEL: Yeah. Yeah, I’d be happy to. This is an area where I think a lot of consumers don’t understand, that our current topsoil continues to lose the nutrients that it needs to produce the products that we know and love. And regenerative is about not only helping bring those nutrients back into the soil, but helps it in a sustainable way, make sure that we can continue to support our soil and the broader biological environments, for us to not only continue to produce the products that we know and love today, but, ultimately, create an ecosystem where it’s not as disruptive as what we’re seeing today. And for us, it’s about, how do we make sure that we can partner with our suppliers so they can support these practices, and helping be an advocate for them? One of the things that I’m really proud of is the fact that we’ve already launched three regenerative products under our own exclusive brands to help take that leadership position as well. And one of my personal favorites is our green lentils under our Whole Foods Market brand, a great product. And it’s one of the very first certified regenerative products from a private label perspective on the market.
ADI IGNATIUS: Yeah, that’s great. Your strategy, if I understand it, seems, essentially, still to be primarily a brick and mortar one. Do you do you feel the need to become more of an e-tailer going forward?
JASON BUECHEL: Well, the reality is we are an e-tailer today. And whether you are having products delivered to your house, you’re picking them up in one of our stores, you’re getting some of our exclusive brand products, like our 365 products, shipped directly to your home, we’re already playing in that space. And I continue to see that we’ll have opportunities both in the physical experience, as well as online. And a lot of our customers like to shop through multiple different channels. And in some cases, they’d like to have center of store picked for them and ready for them to pick it up when they shop the store and then look at our perimeter, whether it’s picking out their own meat or seafood, interacting with our team members, in the case, as an example, our cheese case, a certified cheese professional being able to help choose exactly the right cheeses as you’re putting together your cheese board and charcuterie plates.
ADI IGNATIUS: So fast forward not way into the future, but a year or two or three, how do you think the in-store experience will change for Whole Foods customers?
JASON BUECHEL: Well, I think we’re going to continue to find ways to just help simplify and make things easier for our customers. One of the things that our customers find value is our ability to help save them time. In some cases, as I mentioned earlier, delivery and pickup help support that. We want to be able to find ways that customers can find products in the store faster, how we can better provide the expertise across all the different areas within our stores so our customers can help– make sure that we’re supporting the amazing events and the dinners that they’re helping prepare for their family and loved ones, to ultimately, checking out faster in our stores. And so there’s a lot of things that we’re making investments on where technology will support things, as well as investments we’re making into our team member experience to make sure that our team members can best serve our customers and help save them time.
ADI IGNATIUS: So I want to go to an audience question. This is from Holly, who’s in Boston, who’s asking from your experience. Do you have any recommendations for how companies can best develop an internal leader to be the next CEO, including maybe external development programs?
JASON BUECHEL: Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I’m really, really proud of is the investment that we put into our team member experience and focus around internal growth and development. We had over 11,000 promotions over the last 12 months, which I’m so proud of. When I look at my executive team, as an example, two of my direct reports actually started in our stores part time. Our head of operations Bill Jordan, as an example, joined through Mrs. Gooch’s, which was one of our acquisitions that we did. He’s worked across almost nearly every part of our stores, multiple regions, and now leads operations, reporting directly to me for all of Whole Foods Market. And one of the things that we’ve really done is making big investments into what we call career development programs. And we do this for our major leadership positions within the organization.
Just yesterday, I was actually doing the keynote graduation ceremony for our store team leader career development program, which is really focused on helping over a six-month period of time, helping make sure that our team members are ready to take that next step up. One of the things that we’ve done for our most senior leadership positions is help cross-pollinate and have leaders work across multiple different parts of the company. And that was something that I was privileged to be part of as Whole Foods and being able to lead multiple different functions before stepping into this role.
I think one of the other things that’s really unique for us is, both for our executive team and something we call WFLN, which is the Whole Foods Market Leadership Network, built of our 19 most senior leaders. We collectively work together across all different facets. And so folks are helping participate in work in parts of the company that they may not lead. And so for us, it’s really making sure that we’re working together as a team and helping make sure that we’re bringing some of those experiences and expertise across our entire leadership team. I’m also really proud of the fact that 50% of the group I just mentioned also grew up in our stores. And so that expertise of knowing Whole Foods and being able to build a career in a functional area is something we’re really proud of.
ADI IGNATIUS: So let’s shift gears a little bit. This is another audience question. This is from [INAUDIBLE] in Punjab, Pakistan. And it’s about hybrid work. And the question is, how do you manage the fact that your frontline workers are there and need to be there full time in the stores, versus, let’s say, white collar workers, who are able to work hybrid, work from home. How do you balance that?
JASON BUECHEL: Yeah. For us, we’ve done a return to office where our we call store support team members are required to be in the office three days a week. But ultimately, many of them also have to spend time in our stores or in our facilities helping connect with team members. One of the things that’s been really important as part of our vision is something I call store centricity and making sure that every single one of our store support team members has a connection to our stores. We, ultimately, have actually included it in something we call our job dialogue process, which is part of our performance management process and setting the expectation and, ultimately, having team members talk about the things that they’ve done over the course of the last 12 months to connect with our stores and what those experiences have taught them. We’ve also built some programs around some of our senior leadership and other leaders that we have within our store support group and actually, pairing them with stores and partnering up with our store team leaders and finding ways that we can better support our stores and, ultimately, making sure that we can bring those experiences where our store support team members really understand everything that’s happening day to day in a store, what it takes to lead a store, and how do we help improve our team member and customer experiences in the work that we do.
ADI IGNATIUS: Well, so to build on that, you used the phrase before “the theater of retail.” And I love that term. And I’d like to know more about, when you think about Whole Foods, the Whole Foods experience, what is your theater retail?
JASON BUECHEL: Yeah, for so many of our customers, they’re coming to Whole Foods as sort of an oasis to get out of the hectic day-to-day life. One of my favorite examples of that is our Manhattan West store, located in Hudson Yards, in Manhattan. And you get off the busy street, and you walk in the store. And it’s just an immediate sense of zen. And for me, we want to be able to create this oasis for customers, bring the theater of retail. We want our customers to have sensory overloads in the experiences they have, as they’re walking into produce, the smells that they’re having, the beautiful merchandising that they’re seeing, the demos of products that we’re doing in the store. And so I feel that we can be at our very best when we’re helping bring this theater to life for our customers. Because it’s one of the reasons they’re coming to our stores.
ADI IGNATIUS: So we have a question from James J Johnson, from Reno, Nevada, in the US, who is, I would say, a frequent viewer and commenter and questioner. His question is, how does Whole Foods think about the phenomenon of food deserts? And is there anything– you aren’t everywhere. You’re in markets that can sustain it. But how do you think about the food desert issue, at least in the US, and whether there’s anything you can do to alleviate that?
JASON BUECHEL: Yeah, this is one of the areas we’ve actually made investments and have tried to find ways to support those who might be underserved or don’t have access to some of the highest quality products that we sell as Whole Foods Market. One of the areas of investment on this is we have an entire foundation that we call Whole Cities, which has really been dedicated to some of these efforts and not only having us establish stores, but ultimately, investing in communities through a lot of different programs that can help bring access to food in these underserved communities.
ADI IGNATIUS: So here’s another question from the audience. This is from Adam, from London, in the UK. Having followed a very dynamic, well-profiled CEO, Adam is asking, how do you think about the role of the CEO? Does it need to be a very public-faced role or not necessarily? You’re probably still figuring that out, but love your early thoughts on, what is the proper role of the CEO vis-a-vis internal, versus external presence?
JASON BUECHEL: Yeah, I think it really depends upon the company. Are you public or private? In our case, we are a subsidiary. And for me, the most important role that I have is internal from that perspective. Obviously, having responsibilities external allows us to support our stakeholders as well. So when I look at the time that I spend, it’s probably 80% on the internal side of things. And in the 20% I’m spending external, it’s really trying to help connect with and support our stakeholders. I give a great example on this with our suppliers. How do we help bring a voice into other organizations, folks within government, around some of the work that we need to do to help support our farmers and our suppliers and ranchers? And so for me, it’s figuring out that right balance. But the responsibility I personally have is serving as our internal leader and making sure that our team members understand the vision that we have as an organization.
I’m spending time directly in our stores, connecting with our team members, making sure that they understand where we are going and making sure that we can get feedback. And really, my job is to be a servant leader in serving our stores. One of the things that I really have tried to do is set the tone across the entire organization of us being store centric. When we launched our new vision, growing with purpose, in January, one of the commitments that we made is that every single one of our stores is being visited by a member of our executive team. There’s 8 of us, so for our 535 plus stores, we’re spending a lot of time on this roadshow this year connecting with our team members, making sure they understand the path of where we’re going, and getting their feedback of what they’re seeing. And it’s helping us improve and elevate many of the priorities and initiatives that we’re doing across the organization.
ADI IGNATIUS: So I don’t think we’ve been through a show this year without talking about AI, generative AI. So we do have a question from Tao in Tampa, Florida in the US, which is just, how do you think about AI and how it can or maybe already is changing the grocery shopping experience?
JASON BUECHEL: Yeah, I think it’s going to fundamentally change retail and grocery over the course of the next 10 years. And going to one of your earlier questions, this is one of the great things about being a subsidiary of Amazon, as well, and being able to leverage capabilities on this side. When I think about how we work, things are going to change the role of a merchant, which is very much at the center of retail in how you select product, decisions that you’re going to be making around assortment and pricing and merchandising. We’re going to have additional insights and tool sets that AI is going to really influence. When I think about all of the different, amazing things that this is going to provide for customers, as well, and whether it’s helping build out a shopping list, to helping select products that you’re going to bring together for an amazing meal or experience that you’re preparing for, to helping provide discovery, I think there’s going to be so many different applications in how this is going to make things easier, better, and more impactful for our customers and at the same time, allowing us to raise the bar in how we look at things, like assortment and all of the key things that we do in bringing the experiences to our customers.
ADI IGNATIUS: Yeah. So I want to get back to… you’ve talked a couple of times about sustainability. And I know that’s a big priority for you. How does a company go from wanting generally to do the right thing in terms of climate change, in terms of sustainability, to really making it fundamental? And I don’t if you feel like you’re there yet. But I think a lot of companies are going through this. OK, there’s next stage of not just trying to make your ESG numbers, but to try to really make a significant contribution here. I’d love to hear your thoughts on how companies can best do that.
JASON BUECHEL: Yeah, well, first and foremost, I think it’s important about being authentic. And for us, within our core values, the environment has always played a role, the work that we’ve done in supporting the organic movement as an example, which has been the leading climate-friendly agricultural practice over the last several decades. For us, it’s always been part and parcel around how we can make sure that this is authentically connected to the work that we’re doing. And for us, it’s easy because it ties to our higher purpose of nourishing people on the planet. When it comes down to doing things just for the sake of hitting metrics and goals, and you’re not thinking about how this ties to why you’re doing it, I think you have to take a step back and really understand, how does this actually connect to the company’s vision and the mission and the goals that we’re trying to do? And if it’s not authentically there, understand the changes that you need to make within the organization to make sure that it is. That would be my top piece of advice.
ADI IGNATIUS: Yeah, that sounds good. So here’s an audience question. This is Michelle, from Ontario, somewhere in Ontario in Canada, about retention. What strategies have you, has the company, implemented to retain employees?
JASON BUECHEL: Yeah. One of the top things is providing growth opportunities for our team members. I mentioned a little bit earlier, we had 11,000 promotions over the last 12 months. One of the things that’s important about doing that is providing ways by which we can help support our team members’ growth and happiness. One of the areas that I’m just really excited about is we’ve got something called an apprentice program. We currently have three live, a butcher apprentice program, a certified cheese professional, and a bakery decorator apprentice. And we’re going to be rolling this out so each one of our departments and teams has an apprentice program going forward. And this allows team members to develop skills and trades that they can use at Whole Foods Market and elsewhere in their life. And it’s not only great for the team member, but it’s great for our customers. Our customers are actually coming to Whole Foods Market for the great expertise and experience that we can provide. And so by having things like this in place, it makes sure that our team members are supported in taking those next steps for growth within the company.
I mentioned, a little bit earlier, the career development programs that we do. We do this throughout our entire organization. So we’ve got programs for multiple levels within our store around store leadership, as an example. And so team members not only see their current next step opportunities, but they see the growth and support that they’re going to have at future levels as well. One other area that I’m just really proud of is we’ve got something called Cultivate. It’s a mentoring program that we have in place. And this is very unique to Whole Foods Market. Most other retailers might offer this type of program for their store team leader or store leadership. We open up all this for our team members. So they have opportunities to connect with other folks to get supporting, coaching, mentoring experiences.
I just have a great example of connecting with two, where we have a team member Marie, in Hawaii, who’s connected with a mentor who’s in Boston, and the experience that she’s able to have virtually in a wonderful way to learn things that allow her not only to grow, but bring new experiences into her store. It’s examples like that really have team members not only connected to Whole Foods, but knowing that they’re supported not just for now, but for an entire career that they can have with us.
ADI IGNATIUS: So we’re almost out of time. But I want to ask one. It’s the cliche question you probably get all the time. When I interviewed Howard Schultz, when he was CEO of Starbucks, I had to ask, what does he order when he walks up to the barista? So when you shop Whole Foods, what’s in your basket? What are some of your favorites?
JASON BUECHEL: Well, every shop is a little bit different, depending upon what I’m preparing for. When I’m going through produce, I’m always picking up bananas, blueberries, avocado. At our seafood counter, I’m looking at whatever’s come in fresh. I love our salmon. It’s one of my favorite products. In meat, it’s the ribeye. In cheese, I’m looking to see what artisan cheeses we have in place. Current favorites right now are Uplands and Jasper Hill, as far as producers. The Harbison is actually one of my personal favorites. In our salad bar– or sorry, in our prepared foods, I eat at the salad bar almost daily for lunch. And in center store, I’m always trying to check out, whatever store I’m in, what are the local products? Local is a really important part of Whole Foods Market. So I love discovering new local favorites in whatever store I’m at.
ADI IGNATIUS: I assume your certified cheese professional gets a little nervous when you walk up and ask what they’ve got.
JASON BUECHEL: Not at all, because they know that I’m excited about a great conversation we’re going to have on some of their favorites. And usually, it involves tasting a few samples, as well, so always a great experience.
ADI IGNATIUS: All right, well, Jason, I want to thank you for being on the show. It’s really, really great to hear your thoughts. And thank you for being here.
JASON BUECHEL: Thanks for having me.
HANNAH BATES: That was Whole Foods CEO Jason Buechel in conversation with Adi Ignatius on the New World of Work.
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This episode was produced by Julia Butler, Scott LaPierre, Anne Saini, and me, Hannah Bates. Ian Fox is our editor. Music by Coma Media. Special thanks to Dave Di Iulio, Elie Honein, Mikahla Dawson, Karen Player, Erica Truxler, Ramsey Khabbaz, Nicole Smith, Anne Bartholomew, and you – our listener. See you next week.
