Born and raised in Los Angeles, Miguel Torres joined Advantage Solutions in 2005 as a part-time merchandiser working with the Kroger team for SAS Retail Services while still in college.
Twenty years later, Torres is senior vice president of operations for the Ahold Delhaize USA team — a career journey that illustrates the depth of opportunity and career mobility available at Advantage. Through Advantage’s unrivaled reach and scale, Torres has worked with some of the largest retailers in the U.S. as he’s climbed the rungs of success.
“When I talk about my story here at Advantage and SAS, I love to say how ‘not special’ my story is, if that makes any sense,” Torres says. “Mine is not a one-in-a-million story and I’m proud to say that many if not all of my counterparts at the VP level have had a similar journey. Advantage rewards those that invest into the business and invest into their careers.
“We are a people business. Our business is our people.”
Once Torres graduated from college, he was offered a full-time role creating planograms for the Kroger team, and then became a coordinator for the SAS in-store execution team. He quickly moved up the ranks.
In 2012, the Torres family moved to Pennsylvania, where he was given the opportunity to lead the team supporting Weis Markets. That led to a role with the Ahold Delhaize USA (ADUSA) team, which includes northeast and mid-Atlantic grocery chains Food Lion, Giant Food, The Giant Co., Stop & Shop and Hannaford.
Today, Torres leads the ADUSA team from Salisbury, North Carolina, where he and his family moved last year, and oversees all aspects of the ADUSA business, which serves more than 60 million shoppers each week through more than 2,000 stores and e-commerce.
As a leader who has seen his own career grow with Advantage, Torres takes special satisfaction in seeing his team members grow professionally and personally.
“The best days for our operations team are when we can celebrate a supervisor promotion from team lead,” he says. “It can be life-changing for some people. I know it was for me, so that feeling never gets old and that is why we do this: to change and impact people’s lives.”
