Woolworths CEO Brad Banducci is stepping down from the top role after eight and a half years, it was announced today.
Banducci will retire in September this year, Woolworths informed the Australian Stock Exchange this morning.
He will be succeeded as Woolworths Group CEO and managing director by Amanda Bardwell from September 1.
Banducci’s announcement comes on the heels of a heated grilling on ABC’s Four Corners which saw the CEO temporarily walk out in an apparent flash of temper.
Asked about former ACCC chair Rod Sims’ comments that Australia had one of the most concentrated grocery markets in the world, Banducci said it “wasn’t true” and dismissed Sims as “retired”, before asking the latter comment to be taken off the record.
Sims stepped down from the ACCC in 2022.
A recent report by another former ACCC chair, Professor Allan Fels, has shone a spotlight on Australia’s supermarkets – among other industries – with biting observations about the extent of alleged price gouging targeting both producers and customers.
Meanwhile, an ACCC inquiry into supermarket pricing was launched by the federal government earlier this month.
