After a seven-year run as the company’s top executive, Barry Litwin is set to leave Global Industrial Company on Aug. 9.

The distributor of industrial and MRO supplies announced July 11 that Litwin notified the company’s board of directors of his upcoming departure to pursue another opportunity.

Port Washington, NY-based Global Industrial has appointed Richard Leeds — the company’s Executive Board Chairman — as its interim CEO.

Litwin joined Global Industrial in 2017 as Board Director and became its CEO at the start of 2019. Since then, the distributor has enacted numerous initiatives that have seen the company grow from $940 million in 2019 revenue to $1.3 billion in 2023. Global Industrial was No. 26 on MDM’s 2024 Top Industrial Supplies Distributors List.

“It has been a privilege to lead Global Industrial over the last nearly six years,” Litwin said in a news release. “I am proud of the achievements we have accomplished together, from digital transformation to maintaining our paramount focus on the customer. The Global Industrial team has my complete confidence to continue successfully executing on our strategy going forward.”

Litwin was featured at MDM’s 2023 SHIFT Conference in a fireside chat with Executive Editor Mike Hockett, in which Litwin detailed the company’s many recent initiatives and what it learned from all the change management involved with enacting them. The takeaways from that fireside were detailed in this October Premium piece.

Other Premium content featuring Global Industrial includes:

• Premium: Inside Global Industrial’s ‘Engaged’ Sports Marketing (August 2023)
• Premium: Behind the Deal – Global Industrial Finds Strategic Fit in Indoff (June 2023)
• Premium: Global Industrial Continues Sales Structure Diversification (July 2022)

As its Interim Chairman, Leeds joined Global Industrial in 1982 and served as its Chairman and CEO from 1995 until becoming Executive Chairman in 2016. He also previously served as President of the company’s Industrial Products Group until 2011.

“Barry has been an invaluable leader during his time with the Company, and his contributions both as CEO and Board member have been instrumental in the growth and continued success of the business,” said Richard Leeds, Executive Chairman of the Board. “We thank Barry for his service to the Company and wish him well in his future endeavors.”

Litwin shared more perspective on his Global Industrial tenure in the following LinkedIn post on July 11: