NEW YORK — Duane Reade Inc. has bolstered its merchandising team in a flurry of personnel moves as it pushes ahead with major store-optimization and marketing initiatives.

The drug chain has hired Paul Tiberio as senior director of category management. The company says Tiberio will lead the category management team and help redefine the Duane Reade brand through the development and implementation of product and promotional strategies. The 20-year retail veteran joins Duane Reade from Shaw’s Supermarkets, where he was vice president of center-store merchandising.

Lee Colarco, previously a vice president of category management, has been named to the new post of vice president of merchandising. Assuming a sales-focused function, she will develop and implement store merchandising strategies to help the 253-store chain better capitalize on its knowledge of the metropolitan New York City market, according to the company.

Meanwhile, Michael Winer will now lead analytics for Duane Reade as director of analytics and process engineering. The chain also has appointed two new general merchandise managers (GMMs).

Scott McCulloch joins the company as health GMM, coming over from The Vitamin Shop, where he served as the head merchant and was responsible for merchandising and brand development. And category manager Jackie Burrell has been promoted to convenience GMM. Duane Reade notes that she has helped devise new category standards that have lifted sales and margins.

In addition, Primo Muñoz will take on key convenience categories, leveraging his experience in the mass and food channels to enhance the retailer’s product assortment. Nathan West joins the company as a merchandising financial analyst, responsible for front-store financial reporting, forecasting and budgeting.

Also, Sharon Matthew has been named product manager for private brands, bringing experience in consumer packaged goods as well as expertise in retail analytics and strategy.

Duane Reade has been aggressively remodeling stores — including improvements to store layouts, signage and merchandising — as well as beefing up its pharmacy operation as it ramps up its presence in the New York marketplace, which has seen an influx of competition from chain drug and mass market retailers.

Billing itself as “uniquely New York,” Duane Reade last month launched an advertising blitz, with the chain’s messages peppering subway cars and buses as well as phone kiosks, billboards and urban panels near rail stations.