CHICAGO, December 23, 2025 —Performance Food Group (PFG) has tapped current President and COO Scott McPherson to succeed George Holm as CEO as of January 1 as part of what the distribution powerhouse says is a planned leadership transition.
Holm will move up to Executive Chair of the company’s board of directors. He will work closely with McPherson on mergers and acquisitions, strategic planning, and customer relations, PFG said.
McPherson will be appointed to the board as part of the realignment.
A successor as President and COO was not named.
McPherson assumed those positions in January 2025. He is credited with enhancing PFG’s use of technology to streamline customer communications and order fulfillment.
During PFG’s Investors Day in late spring, McPherson also detailed PFG’s efforts to manufacture its own proprietary products instead of having an established supplier produce the private-label options, as is the norm in food-away-from-home distribution.
He also revealed that PFG will look intently at the use of technology to streamline the process of getting products into the company’s warehouses and distribution centers. Distributors have tended to focus on the use of tech to facilitate the shipment of products from warehouse to foodservice customers.
The change in corporate leadership follows a failed effort by US Foods to acquire PFG, an arch-rival. After PFG rebuffed the overtures, the activist investment firm Sachem Head publicly called on the company’s leadership team to reconsider its refusal to consider a deal.
Sachem also asked for four of the 12 seats that make up PFG’s board.
After Sachem came forward, PFG and US Foods agreed to appoint a panel of third-party representatives to assess the benefits and detriments of a merger. The arrangement was embraced as a way of engaging in due diligence without either corporation having to reveal proprietary information to a rival.
The so-called clean team concluded in late November of this year that a merger would be less of a benefit to the would-be partners than remaining independent.