Choom Appoints New President, Corey Gillon, with 20 Years of Senior Retail Leadership

VANCOUVER, July 30, 2019 /CNW/ – PRESS RELEASE – Choom, an emerging adult-use cannabis company that has secured one of the largest retail networks in Canada, has announced the appointment of Corey Gillon as president, effective Aug. 26, 2019. Gillon joins the company as a seasoned global retail executive to strengthen Choom’s management team as it prepares for rapid growth within the Canadian cannabis retail market.

Gillon’s executive leadership roles were established at Walmart and Aritzia, where the corporate strategies he implemented were customer-focused and ensured operational retail development. Walmart is recognized as a global leader in retail operations and Aritzia is one of Canada’s most preeminent lifestyle retailers. During Gillon’s career, he led multibillion-dollar operations spanning multiple countries and was responsible for up to 22,000 associates. Gillon has a proven track record for delivering year over year revenue growth as a result of executional excellence, leveraging global best practices and customer-focused retail strategies. Gillon is a graduate of the prestigious Harvard Business School from their executive leadership program.

“As Choom prepares for its next phase of cannabis retail growth, it is critical to bring on a retail executive of Corey’s caliber to further grow and develop our company. Corey’s experience at Walmart and Aritzia comes with a proven record of innovation, long-term planning, driving change and developing brands for two of the world’s most innovative and fastest growing retailers.” states Chris Bogart, president and CEO of Choom. “We are thrilled that Corey is joining the Choom team in the capacity of president. He will play an integral role in the execution of our retail strategy especially during this critical time of our aggressive opening scheduled for the coming months.”

Gillon said, “I am excited to lead a growing part of the Choom business, particularly during such a dynamic and exciting period. Choom is building an iconic brand and I look forward to stewarding the expansion of the Choom cannabis retail network as it prepares for rapid growth within the Canadian cannabis retail landscape.” 

Gillon is a senior retail veteran with over 20 years of experience leading high-profile organizations. During his tenure at Aritzia, Gillon served as the senior vice president of the Retail Divison where he was responsible for leading innovation and optimization of the organization–including building central operations teams, launching a new complex retail POS system, while spearheading process improvement and shoring up the infrastructure of the company. During his 15-year career at Walmart, Gillon was responsible for overseeing multiple areas of the organization both domestically and internationally. Notably, he led Walmart’s Western Canadian retail footprint of 100 retail stores with P&L responsibility of $7.1 billion, led the omni-channel strategy for the organization as a vice president of eCommerce and co-led the due diligence and integration of a major global acquisition in Sub-Saharan Africa.