Grainger announced it has appointed Nancy L. Berardinelli-Krantz as Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer, effective Jan. 30, 2023. Berardinelli-Krantz will succeed John L. Howard who will retire from the company in July 2023 after 23 years of service.

Berardinelli-Krantz joins Grainger from Eaton Corporation, where she is Senior Vice President and Deputy Chief Legal Officer. Prior to Eaton, Nancy served in senior leadership positions at The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company and worked for the international law firm of Jones Day. She is also a Veteran of the United States Army, Judge Advocate General's Corps, where she served as a trial attorney in Fort Hood, Texas, and for the Contract Appeals Division in Washington, D.C. She also served as a trial defense counsel in Baghdad, Iraq.

Berardinelli-Krantz earned a bachelor's degree in political science from John Carroll University, and a juris doctorate, magna cum laude, from the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. She also serves on the board of trustees for the University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children's Foundation and is a board member for The Command Purpose Foundation. Berardinelli-Krantz succeeds John L. Howard who joined Grainger in 2000 as Senior Vice President and General Counsel and oversees the company's legal and corporate environment, health and safety and corporate security teams. Howard is a Fellow of the American College of Governance Counsel and a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the boards of 1871 Chicago, Rush University Medical Center and The Grainger Foundation.

He also served as Chairman, Special Panel on Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago's Seventh District Advisory Council and as Vice Chairman of the Chicago Botanic Garden.