After less than a year of heading Mills Fleet Farm following its $1.2 billion sale to investment firm KKR, Duncan Mac Naughton is departing for an executive role at Family Dollar.
 
Mac Naughton, whose 30-plus-year retail career includes leadership roles at Walmart and Supervalu, was named CEO of Mills Fleet Farm last March. The 54-year-old Wisconsin native will be taking over as president and chief operating officer of Family Dollar, which was acquired by Chesapeake, Virginia-based Dollar Tree last summer.
 
Upon leaving, Mac Naughton said, “With [Mills Fleet Farm’s] fantastic team, rich heritage, and great service, the company is well capitalized and poised for further growth.”
 
Wayne Sales, former CEO of Canadian Tire, will fill in as interim CEO in Mac Naughton’s place.
 
Like Mac Naughton, Sales also had tenure at Eden Prairie-based grocery conglomerate Supervalu. He served as CEO for eight months and earned a reported $12.8 million.
 
“There is no other company like Mills Fleet Farm,” Sales said in a statement, “and I am excited and ready to jump in and join the team to continue the positive momentum that is already well underway.”

Until the comany's sale last year, Brainerd-based Mills Fleet Farm had been a family-run business since 1955. Stewart Mills III, who recently ran for a U.S. House seat in Minnesota’s 8th district, said the Mills family sold because it couldn’t continue to solely finance growth of the retail chain by itself. That’s when New York-based KKR scooped up the 35-store chain in January of last year.
 
One year later and Mills Fleet Farm is up to 36 locations and has another store scheduled to open in Monticello in the spring.