Aldi Nord’s German country operation has appointed Dirk Fust as Vice-CEO and entrusted him with board-level responsibility for the discount retailer’s national IT and logistics. This was reported by Lebensmittel Zeitung. According to the article, the former Lidl manager has taken over the procurement, sales, supply chain management and marketing departments from Oktawian Torchala. In addition, Dirk Fust is now responsible for IT within the German national organisation. Across all countries, Oliver Tackmann remains responsible as CIO for Aldi Nord’s IT.
For its German country operation, the discount retailer has now consolidated several key operational areas including responsibility for technology into a single executive role. The human resources department, which was previously also overseen by Oktawian Torchala, has been handed over to Lars Kürten, CEO of Aldi Nord in Germany.
At Aldi Nord, Dirk Fust had previously served as Managing Director of International Marketing Solutions. He joined the Essen-based company in February 2025. Prior to that, the manager had worked for Lidl for more than 20 years. There, Dirk Fust most recently spent four years as Executive Vice President in the USA and had previously managed the stores in Denmark.
SAP projects pose a challenge for Aldi Nord
Dirk Fust has taken over responsibility for IT at the German national unit at a challenging time for the discount retailer. In 2024, Aldi Nord had piloted its new SAP-based system landscape at its Dutch regional subsidiary in Culemborg. Problems with the stock management had led to significant disruptions in the supply of goods and empty shelves. The Retail Optimiser reported.
The new system landscape, known internally as Beat@ATS, includes, amongst other things, SAP S/4HANA, Relex’s inventory optimisation, the SAP EWM warehouse management system, a product information system from Informatica and the GK point-of-sale solution. Aldi Nord had described the disastrous impact of the go-live on inventory record management in that region at the time as the “expected outcome of a test”. At the time, the company had stated that it would continue its transformation as planned.
Oktawian Torchala returns to Poland
According to Lebensmittel Zeitung, Oktawian Torchala is set to join the Polish subsidiary as Vice-CEO on 1 November. There, he will manage the business alongside CEO Adam Miszczyszyn and Vice-CEO Octavian Preda.
The manager is familiar with Aldi Poland from numerous previous roles. Oktawian Torchala led the subsidiary as CEO from 2017 to 2021. He subsequently moved to the Essen headquarters.
Vice-CEOs oversee the regional subsidiaries
Sarah Cordes and Markus Dicker remain part of the German management team as Vice-CEOs. Both will focus exclusively on overseeing the regional subsidiaries in future. Aldi Nord operates around 2,200 stores in Germany, which are organised into 20 regional subsidiaries.
In addition, Aldi Nord Germany has recently expanded its management team to include a dedicated finance role. Martin Czoske took up the newly created position of Chief Financial Officer on 1 October. The CFO reports directly to Lars Kürten.
