Hy-Vee President Donna Tweeten To Retire
Grocery industry veteran and current Hy-Vee president Donna Tweeten will soon call it a career.
The first woman in Hy-Vee history to serve as company president, Tweeten will retire on Jan. 24, 2025.
“No one has shaped the Hy-Vee brand with such skill, precision, and creativity more than Donna Tweeten,” said Jeremy Gosch, Hy-Vee’s chairman and CEO. “Throughout her career, Donna has served as an innovator, trailblazer, and creative thinker in nearly every aspect of Hy-Vee’s operations. There’s no doubt that her influence will be felt across Hy-Vee for decades to come.”
Tweeten is lauded for guiding the grocer’s brand and image strategy and helped double the size of the Iowa-based grocery chain during her tenure. Under her leadership, Hy-Vee was the first retailer to engage in a name, image, likeness (NIL) contract with basketball star Caitlin Clark, as well as sign partnerships with Kansas City Chiefs players Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, and U.S Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson East.
Tweeten joined Hy-Vee in 2006 as assistant vice president of communications and was promoted to assistant vice president of marketing in 2009. In 2011, she was named vice president of brand image. She was then promoted to vice president of marketing/communications in 2013, and in 2014, she was named senior vice president and chief marketing officer.
In 2016, she was promoted to executive vice president and elected to Hy-Vee’s board of directors, and later that year she became executive vice president, chief marketing officer/chief customer officer. In 2020, she was also named chief of staff. In 2022, Tweeten transitioned to executive vice president, chief of staff and chief merchandising officer and then was promoted to executive vice president, chief of staff, and chief marketing officer. In late 2022, Tweeten was promoted to her current role as president of Hy-Vee.
Tweeten has received several honors throughout her career including being named one of Progressive Grocer’s Top Women in Grocery in 2011, 2013, and 2019, and received the publication’s highest honor, the Top Women in Grocery Trailblazer award, in 2023.
In 2022, Tweeten received the Top Women In Store Brands Lifetime Achievement Award from Women Impacting Storebrand Excellence (WISE) and Store Brands.
She has also been nationally recognized for her influence in the advertising and sports marketing industries, including being named a 2024 Champion of Change by ADWEEK and receiving Ad Age’s Leading Women Forward award. This year, she also received FMI’s prestigious Esther Peterson Award for Consumer Service.
