- Cătălin Samara, COO & E-commerce Director and at the same time member of Carrefour Romania’s Executive Board, has taken on the position of Director, Bringo International, having the responsibility to coordinate Bringo’s activity in the five countries in which the service is active under different brands: Romania, Argentina, Belgium, France and Morocco;
- Cătălin thus leads a new structure, Bringo International, created by Carrefour Group and comprising Bringo Romania.
Starting with 3 January, Cătălin Samara, COO, E-commerce Director and member of Carrefour Romania’s Executive Board, has taken on the position of Director, Bringo International, having the responsibility to coordinate the international activity of the personal shopping and delivery service. The newly created position comes as a result of the constant development of Bringo, a Romanian business concept successfully exported to four other markets and now operating as part of a larger, global organization. Cătălin has had an essential contribution to the local development of the concept and service, by supervising Carrefour Romania’s e-commerce area and continuously extending the partnership with Bringo.
“I would like to sincerely thank Cătălin for the results achieved in Carrefour Romania and for his essential role in our team. Throughout a truly significant career with us, Cătălin has distinguished himself through important projects with real impact in the organization and has evolved into a strong leader, ready to capitalize his talent, ambition and perseverance alongside a fresh international team, at group level. I am glad he has accepted this new challenge and that he has chosen to continue his professional journey together with Carrefour, in an environment that encourages and rewards performance both locally and globally. Good luck to the new Bringo International team and to Cătălin in all their future projects!”, said Julien Munch, CEO Carrefour Romania.
With the strong development of the Bringo concept worldwide, Carrefour Group felt the necessary step would be to create an international structure, part of the group, to coordinate all the local efforts, now under the supervision of Cătălin. Bringo Romania is now entirely owned and coordinated by Bringo International. The company is active under different brands in five countries: Romania, Argentina, Belgium, France and Morocco.
“I am honored to take on this new challenge and to be even more closely involved with Bringo’s activity. It’s a service I strongly believe in and that has potential to grow in all the markets it is present, as customers everywhere want flexible options for doing their shopping and time to focus on what matters to them. The Bringo model gives them just that and, as such, has proven to be successful. We will work in Bringo International, together with the Carrefour Group, to take it to the next level”, added Cătălin Samara, the new Director of Bringo International.
Cătălin Samara has been with Carrefour Romania for 21 years, having joined the company in 2000, a couple of months before the opening of the company’s first store in Romania and as such being among its first employees. Until now, he has held strategic positions in the company, from Hypermarket Operational Director to Marketing, Digital and E-commerce, Client Service and Omnichannel Director, becoming Member of the Executive Board in 2011. In his position as COO and E-commerce Director, Cătălin Samara was in charge of overseeing the operations of all physical store formats in the Carrefour network in Romania: hypermarkets, supermarkets, proximity and Supeco. Along with the responsibilities of managing Assets, Desks and Process Organization, Cătălin has also coordinated the development of the omnichannel business model which comprises the e-commerce strategy and the digital transformation operations.
In only 4 years, Bringo extended to 37 cities in Romania and now includes in the app over 100 Carrefour stores in all formats (hypermarket, supermarket, express and Supeco). In addition, it recently launched the 30-minute fast delivery of Carrefour products in Bucharest, Iasi, Cluj, Timisoara, Constanta and Brasov, the service being based on the supermarket and especially the express line in the Carrefour network. The partnership and its development over time implied Catalin’s direct involvement from the very beginning, as e-commerce coordinator. Not least, the Bringo model was successfully exported to four other markets during this time.
In his new position, Cătălin will coordinate Bringo International’s activity in all the five markets it is active, having, among others, the role to integrate these branches technically and operationally. Following the appointment, Cătălin’s responsibilities in Carrefour Romania are redistributed internally.
