Former Cavender's and JCPenney executive Charles Vojtas slides into CIO role at URM Stores

Charles Vojtas is starting a new position as Chief Information Officer at American food distribution company URM Stores. His CV includes stints at Cavender’s (CTO), JCPenney (Sr Director - Omni Foundation, and Burlington Stores (Sr. Director, Supply Chain and Web Systems Development).

At Cavender’s, his work supported improvements in modernising PoS and store systems, warehouse and order management systems, architecting a cloud first data strategy, store labour scheduling, order fulfillment, customer loyalty, system reliability, and business planning.

“I’m excited to join URM and support our member-owners and teams across the co-op,” he says. “My priorities are dependable operations, transparent and clear communication and smart modernisation that improves the experience for stores, staff, and shoppers.”

“I’m excited to welcome Charles,” says Roger White, CEO at URM. “He has great experience dealing with supply chain systems and operations. He is a proven leader and will help URM continue to modernise our systems, support our retailers' success, and set a technology roadmap to keep us competitive in the future.”

2026 RTIH Innovation Awards

Supply chain systems and operations will be a key focus area at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards.

The awards will open for entries in April. They celebrate global retail technology innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.

Our winners will be revealed at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards Ceremony, taking place at The HAC in Central London on Thursday, 15th October.

Check out our 2025 winners here.

Our 2025 hall of fame entrants were revealed during a sold out event which took place at The HAC on 16th October and consisted of a drinks reception, three course meal, and awards ceremony presided over by award winning comedian, actress and writer Tiff Stevenson.

In his welcome speech, Scott Thompson, Founder and Editor, RTIH, said: “This is the awards’ fifth year as a physical event. We started off with just 30 people at the South Place Hotel not far from here, then moved to London Bridge Hotel, then The Barbican, and last year RIBA’s HQ in the West End.”

“But I’m conscious of the fact that, to quote the legend that is Taylor Swift, You’re only as hot as your last hit, baby. So, this year we’ve moved to our biggest venue yet, and also pulled in our largest number of entries to date and broken attendance records.”

He added: “This year’s submissions have without doubt been our best yet. To quote one of the judges: The examples of innovative developments across both traditional and digital retail spaces were truly remarkable.”

Congratulations to our winners, and a big thank you to our sponsors, judging panel, the legend that is Tiff Stevenson, and all those who attended our 2025 gathering.