When Colleen Lindholz joined Kroger as a pharmacist in 1995, she couldn’t have known she was starting a 31-year journey that would fundamentally reshape how one of the country’s largest grocery retailers thinks about health. Today, as Colleen retires from her role as GVP & President of Kroger Health, we want to take a moment to honor the leader whose vision gave rise to the movement we know as Nourishing Change.
From Pharmacist to Pioneer
Colleen’s path through Kroger reads like a masterclass in earned leadership. She held roles as a pharmacy manager, coordinator, sales promoter, recruiter, and merchandiser before being promoted to Director of Pharmacy Sales and Marketing in 2013, the same year she began laying the groundwork for what would become Kroger’s Food as Medicine strategy. In 2015, she stepped into the role of President and CEO of The Little Clinic, and in 2017, she made history as the first ever President of the newly formed Kroger Health organization.
Under her leadership, Kroger Health expanded its reach across thousands of pharmacies and clinics, serving millions of customers each year. But for Colleen, scale was never simply about size. It was about what that reach could make possible.
Every pharmacy, clinic, grocery aisle and customer interaction represented an opportunity to help someone live a healthier life.
The Philosophy Behind the Movement
Ask anyone who’s worked with Colleen, and they’ll tell you her guiding philosophy in her own words: Personalized, not generalized. Patient-driven, not prescription-driven.
That belief became foundational to Kroger Health’s Food as Medicine strategy and to a much bigger idea that health does not begin only in a doctor’s office. It begins in the choices people make every day, from what they put in their carts and what they eat to what they can afford, understand and access in their own communities.
Colleen saw something powerful in Kroger’s role as a grocery retailer. Food was not simply adjacent to health. It could be one of the most accessible ways to influence it. Bringing that idea to life required more than a new program or initiative. It required leaders across retail, healthcare, brands, policy and community to think differently about their role in helping people live healthier lives.
That broader belief helped set the stage for what would become Nourishing Change.
Where It All Began
The original vision was never to create just another healthcare conference. Colleen imagined a place where the people shaping everyday health could come together, understand why change was needed and begin doing something about it. Retailers, healthcare leaders, brands, policymakers, researchers, technology companies and community organizations could each bring a different perspective, but with a shared goal of helping people live healthier lives.
At the center of that vision was Colleen’s belief that Kroger could do more than participate in the health conversation. As a grocery retailer serving people every day, it could help lead it by bringing food, healthcare and prevention closer together and by creating a forum where the industry could move from ideas to action.
That vision grew into the Nourishing Change Movement, built on a simple belief that better health requires collaboration across the entire ecosystem.
A Legacy That Lives On
Colleen’s impact has been recognized far beyond Kroger’s walls, from Forbes’ list of Powerful Women Shaping the Future of Food to numerous industry and leadership honors over the years. But ask her, and she’d likely point past the accolades to the work itself: the pharmacists she mentored, the clinics she built, the shoppers whose lives changed because healthier food became easier to find and afford.
Beyond her professional accolades, Colleen has remained deeply engaged in her community. She served as Chair of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) and currently serves as Executive Chair of the American Heart Association’s Heart Mini. She also serves as Chair of the Easterseals Redwood Board of Directors of Greater Cincinnati.
We are who we are today, a movement devoted to helping people live healthier lives, because leaders like Colleen showed us the way and paved the path forward.
This Is Not Goodbye
While Colleen is retiring from Kroger, her story with Nourishing Change is far from over.
We are grateful that she will remain connected to the movement in the years ahead, continuing to share the perspective, passion and purpose that helped create it.
Thank you, Colleen, for believing that healthier lives could begin with everyday choices. For challenging an industry to think differently. For bringing people together around something bigger than any one organization. And for turning a bold idea into a movement that will continue.
Congratulations on an extraordinary career and an even more meaningful legacy.
The path you helped create continues forward.
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