TEWKSBURY, MA - It seems controversy has found Demoulas again with reports coming out that Market Basket has lost almost three centuries worth of retail leadership experience. Seven top executives quit in protest of Monday's removal of former Demoulas CEO Arthur T. Demoulas and fellow executives William Marsden and Joseph Rockwell.
Before he was let go, Marsden was highly critical of the Board's ouster of Arthur T. Demoulas saying, “The Board's action today is driven by greed, pure and simple.”
Former Executive Vice President Jim Miamis, who left Market Basket with his fellow executives today, apparently agreed with this sentiment. The longtime Demoulas employee who started with the company when he was only 11 years old will take with him 59 years of retail experience as he leaves.
His fellow protestors will take with him a comparable wealth of industry knowledge. Joanne Marsden, Ron Carrigan, Susan Dufresne, Dave McLean, Jay Rainville, and Don Mulligan leave Market Basket without its two top Executive Assistants, Deli Director, Director of Operations, Director of Advertising and Governmental Affairs, and Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer, and Vice President.
The Board's actions have done more than drive away top executives. According to the Sentinel & Enterprise News, hundreds of Market Basket workers and managers, many who thought of Arthur T. Demoulas in a way usually reserved for family members, rallied together in the Chelsea store's parking lot yesterday to protest.
Christine Doubleday, a 20 year veteran with the company, said, "I just feel like a family being broken up."
How new Demoulas Co-CEOs Felicia Thornton and James Gooch will deal with this controversy will have big ramifications for the future of Market Basket and its thousands of employees.
For more information on Monday's Board decision which triggered this sequence of events click here.
Market Basket
