The National Restaurant Association today announced that Kenneth Walters has been named vice president of sales for strategic accounts. Walters brings more than 25 years of sales and management experience to the Association team, including extensive expertise in food safety to support the organization’s ServSafe Food Safety product portfolio.

“We’re excited to have Ken join our team to focus on building our product and services offerings, including our ServSafe portfolio,” says Paul Hineman, executive director of National Restaurant Association Solutions. “His experience will help drive our product expansion and development to create high quality, innovative products and services for the Association’s 400,000-plus members and the foodservice industry at large.”

In his new role, Walters will report to Hineman and be responsible for creating the strategic direction and executing a comprehensive sales program for non-traditional channels, including grocery stores, convenience and drug stores, and hotel and lodging. As the Association continues to diversify its ServSafe and partner product revenues, this will be critical to grow accounts and channels.

Previously, Walters was client services manager/food safety with Prometric, where he led the food safety program by developing strategic business relationships and client solutions. In this role, he also assisted in developing and implementing Conference for Food Protection (CFP) standards for accreditation, including all aspects of ANSI surveillance audit compliance.

Before joining Prometric, Walters held key positions at Office Max, Galyans Sports & Outdoors, and Sportmart.

Walters holds a bachelor’s degree from University of Minnesota Carlson School of Business, and lives in Rosemount, Minnesota.