Market Basket’s longtime finance chief Donald Mulligan will retire after 43 years with the grocery chain, and the board said Thursday that Chuck Casassa will become president. The move comes as the company tries to steady itself after months of turmoil at the top.
Mulligan was named interim CEO in September 2025 during a bruising fight over control of the company and will remain an adviser after his transition, the board said. The announcement did not say whether Casassa, who has worked at Market Basket since 1976, will also be named chief executive.
For Market Basket, the leadership change carries weight because it puts two of the company’s most seasoned insiders in new roles at the end of a dispute that has already spilled into the courts. Mulligan spent 27 years as chief financial officer before stepping into the top job in September, while Casassa worked his way up from bagger, to front-end manager, to merchandiser, to assistant manager, then store manager in 1987. He later spent three decades managing stores before becoming grocery supervisor in 2017, overseeing more than 25 stores, and director of operations in 2025.
The board said it is working closely with Mulligan through the transition and praised his customer-first approach. It also said Casassa “embodies the very best of Market Basket” and pointed to his half-century at the company as the reason for elevating him now. That continuity may matter more than ever after a year in which the company’s internal power struggle repeatedly overshadowed day-to-day operations.
Market Basket’s latest leadership crisis began nearly a year ago, when the board announced that Arthur T. Demoulas was being suspended from his role. He was officially fired in September, and earlier this month a Delaware judge ruled against him and said the firing was valid. The company is incorporated in Delaware, where the legal fight was heard.
The dispute echoed a 2014 confrontation, when Demoulas was fired by his cousin’s side of the family. A boycott followed, and he eventually returned after he and his sisters bought out their cousin’s share of the company for $1.6 billion. Thursday’s changes do not end that history, but they do show the board is betting that familiar hands can keep the supermarket chain moving while the ownership fight runs its course. The only open question is whether Casassa’s new title is the start of a broader handoff or just the next step in a company still trying to put its governance crisis behind it.
