French retail group Auchan has named Romanian Ionut Ardeleanu to take over as general manager of Auchan Romania. Ardeleanu, 34, thus becomes one of the most powerful Romanian executives, as he will manage a company with over EUR 1 billion in sales.

Ionut Ardeleanu will respond to Francois Remy, the new non-executive president of Auchan Romania. Remy is also the executive president of Auchan Luxembourg.

Frenchmen Frederic Bellon and Patrick Espasa, who have been managing the group's operations in Romania in the past years, have been relocated to France, where they will hold management positions in Auchan Retail France, according to an announcement of the group.

The moves are part of a wider reshuffle in the French group’s international structure, which now includes three divisions: retail, real estate, and banking.

Ionut Ardeleanu is licensed in economics and joined the company in 2006, as a section manager in the Auchan Titan hypermarket. In 2008, he was appointed to manage the Auchan store in Timisoara and in 2011 he coordinated the opening of the new hypermarket in Craiova. In 2013, Ardeleanu became the regional manager for the South region within the company, coordinating 12 hypermarkets and about 4,000 employees.

Auchan entered the Romanian market in 2006 when it opened its first hypermarket in Bucharest. Today, it operates 33 hypermarkets with a total of 280,000 sqm of retail space and some 11,000 employees. The group has invested EUR 520 million in Romania, where it is also present with its real estate arm Immochan.

The Auchan Holding, controlled by the French Mulliez family, is one of the largest commerce groups in the world. It operates in 16 countries and has over 330,000 employees. In 2014, it had a turnover of EUR 63 billion.

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editor@romania-insider.com