Veteran sales leader known for transforming teams will lead global sales strategy for the AI-native, end-to-end eGrocery platform.

Local Express, a SaaS vertical platform that powers unified, omnichannel e-commerce for grocery and food retailers, today announced the appointment of Edward Kim as Vice President of Sales. In this role, Edward will lead the company’s global sales organization, refine its sales motion, and drive adoption of Local Express’ end-to-end grocery e-commerce and Grocery-ERP platform among independent and regional retailers. Edward reports to CEO and Co-Founder Bagrat Safarian and has a mandate to build a high-performance, scalable team aligned to the company’s rapid growth in online and omnichannel grocery.

Why it matters

• Local Express provides an AI-powered, unified commerce platform purpose-built for food and beverage retailers, including full e-commerce, in-store integrations and back-office capabilities.
• Grocers and specialty food retailers are accelerating digital transformation and demand proven leadership to help them modernize operations while maintaining control of their brand and customer relationships.
• Edward brings a track record of building new revenue engines and mentoring future leaders across SaaS, financial services and advertising.

Executive perspectives
“Edward is exactly the kind of leader we need as we scale our platform into its next phase of growth,” said Bagrat Safarian, CEO and Co-Founder of Local Express. “He knows how to build the team and sales motion, then execute with discipline while staying focused on delivering customer value. That’s how we win with independent and regional grocers who are betting their digital future on us.”

Edward said he was drawn to Local Express by the leadership team and the product’s position in the market. “From my first conversations with Bagrat and the other executives, it was clear this is a company that does business the right way,” he said. “The product is truly best-in-class, on par with what the biggest players in grocery have built for themselves but designed for the independent and regional banners that have historically been underserved. My focus is simple: serve our teams, serve our customers and execute.”

He added: “I’ve spent my career optimizing sales teams so they can sustain high performance. At Local Express, I’m excited to apply that playbook to a company that sits at the intersection of technology, retail and real consumer impact.”

Edward Kim’s background
Edward earned a Business Administration degree with a concentration in finance from The University of Texas at Dallas and over his career has held progressively senior roles across telecom, recruiting, advertising, financial services and SaaS sales. His experience includes:

• AT&T – early-career sales roles building foundational skills in customer acquisition and account management.
• Medical recruiting – three years helping match physicians to critical roles, strengthening his consultative approach.
• Verizon/Supermedia Yellow Pages – district sales management roles leading advertising sales teams and driving new acquisition revenue.
• Paychex – nearly nine years leading 401(k) and benefits administration sales, where he built and coached multi-state sales teams and earned multiple top-performer and President’s Club honors.
• Qualtrics – senior sales management roles in SaaS, helping scale high-growth teams and refine data-driven sales motions.

Most recently, Edward has led and transformed SaaS sales organizations, including building out scale-up sales divisions, launching BDR teams and partnering closely with customer success, pre-sales and implementation to ensure consistent, high-quality client experiences. Across these roles, he has focused on servant leadership, performance turnaround and developing future leaders from within his teams.

About Local Express
Founded in Glendale, California in 2018, Local Express is the leading Native-AI unified commerce platform purpose-built to accelerate omni-channel sales growth for grocery retailers. Designed for the unique needs of regional, independent and specialty food operators, Local Express empowers retailers to build, manage and scale seamless shopping experiences across e-commerce and in-store channels.

Our proprietary AI-powered catalog harmonization engine ensures data consistency, product accuracy, and personalized merchandising across every customer touchpoint, from online discovery to in-store purchase. Integrated with industry-leading POS, CRM and marketing automation, loyalty, coupon and retail media systems, Local Express unifies the tools grocers rely on into one intelligent platform that simplifies operations and drives growth.

Learn more at www.localexpress.io and connect with Edward Kim on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edward-kim-473a1631/.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260401946120/en/

“Edward is exactly the kind of leader we need as we scale our platform into its next phase of growth,” said Bagrat Safarian, CEO and Co-Founder of Local Express.