TEWKSBURY — Days after a Delaware judge ruled in their favor, the Market Basket Board of Directors announced Thursday that interim CEO Donald Mulligan will retire from the grocery chain after 43 years.
Mulligan was named to the interim role in September amid a high-profile clash between former President and CEO Arthur T. Demoulas and his three sisters who all have an ownership stake in their family’s company.
“Don Mulligan has been the Chief Financial Officer of Market Basket for the past 27 years and took on the role as our Chief Executive Office in September 2025 during a difficult period for the company,” board member Steven Collins said in a statement Thursday morning. “The Board is deeply grateful to Mr. Mulligan for his many years of dedicated service, the proud example he set for our associates as a leader of Market Basket, and his ‘customer first’ approach to his responsibilities. The Board will work closely with Mr. Mulligan through his transition and we are thrilled that he has agreed to remain an advisor beyond his transition.”
Alongside the news of Mulligan’s retirement, the board also announced that longtime employee Chuck Casassa will assume the role of president of the company. Casassa has worked at Market Basket since 1976, a tenure which included three decades as a store manager. Board member Jay Hachigian said Casassa “embodies the very best of Market Basket.”
“Beginning his career at the age of 14 as a bagger, he rose through the ranks: a front-end manager, merchandiser, assistant manager, until he was promoted to store manager in 1987,” said Hachigian in a statement. “For the next 30 years he proudly managed many of our busiest stores in New England with skill and trained his colleagues along the way. In 2017 he was again promoted, this time to Grocery Supervisor overseeing more than 25 stores, followed by his most recent promotion to Director of Operations in 2025.”
Hachigian said Casassa’s “leadership and dedication to Market Basket over the past 50 years is highly valued by the Board, and we cannot be more proud to have him serve as our President.”
The latest leadership struggle at Market Basket began nearly a year ago when the board announced Demoulas was being suspended from his role, along with several other employees including Demoulas’ own children. Demoulas was officially fired in September, but what had largely been a battle of public relations then entered the courts in Delaware, where Market Basket is incorporated.
That legal battle resulted in a judge ruling against Demoulas earlier this month and calling his firing valid. The situation echoed another leadership struggle at the company in 2014, when Demoulas was also fired from the role by his cousin’s side of the family. In that case a boycott of the company resulted in Demoulas getting his job back after he and his sisters bought out their cousin’s share of the company for $1.6 billion.
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This is a developing story.