Who’s Who in
CUSTOMER
TEAMS
at Walmart
As seen in
Customer
TEAMS
As manufacturers moved closer to
their retail customers, a shift in the
supplier-retailer relationship resulted
By Sharon M. Goldman
I
t was the ultimate “Field of Dreams” scenario: If you build it, they will come. In
1987, Procter & Gamble helped negotiate
the first customer team operation, putting
the manufacturer’s boots on the ground in
a customer’s HQ city. It was in Bentonville,
Arkansas – home of Walmart.
A P&G study had found the company’s relationship with the retailer lacking: Category
expansion was disappointing; divisions overlapped in calling on the client; and trust between the two organizations was as low as it
had ever been. “[Walmart founder] Sam Walton’s comment was, ‘If I want to punish any
of my buyers, I put them on P&G’s business,’”
recalls former P&G executive Tom Muccio of
the challenges the manufacturer faced in its
Walmart business. “But then Sam said, ‘If you
thought of my stores as an extension of your
company, we would do business entirely differ-
ently.’ That became our mantra going forward.”
Soon after, the CPG powerhouse had a customer team in place in Northwest Arkansas, ready
to call on Walmart at a moment’s notice, 24/7.
It didn’t take long for other CPGs to catch
on. Muccio, who led the development of the
Walmart team and ultimately served as leader of the P&G-Walmart global relationship
through 2003, says there are more than 1,000
customer teams in Northwest Arkansas today
consisting of at least six team members each.
And other cities with a major retail headquarters have also become accustomed to thousands of customer team members living in
the community – collaborating with retail employees in the home office, eating with them
in local restaurants, and joining them for coffee or a drink. There’s Cincinnati for Kroger;
Minneapolis for Target; Pleasanton, California, for Safeway; Issaquah, Washington, for
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FEATURE: CUSTOMER TEAMS
Costco; and Deerfield, Illinois, for Walgreens.
“These are whole communities that are
there for the sole purpose of doing business with the retailer,” says Dina Howell, CEO
of Saatchi & Saatchi X and previously P&G
vice president, global media and brand operations, who worked for seven years on the
Walmart team. “Work really runs at the speed
of retail, so you don’t have time to figure out
how to get a flight in to get work done. You
have to be there, in person.”
Putting a customer team in place is an expensive and complicated endeavor, especially
a large one with a variety of functions including sales, finance, supply chain and marketing. But it has become the norm for major
CPGs. “It’s mandatory for the biggest CPGs,”
says Howell. “And for agencies like ours, it’s
also a real competitive advantage to be in
the market directly with our manufacturing
partners working alongside retail partners.”
This Google map shows the locations of a
multitude of major CPG customer team offices
that are in proximity to Walmart’s Bentonville
headquarters.
depending on the size of the company, the
expectations of the retailer and how the team
evolved within the organization. “It’s all over
the board – you’ll find that every CPG team is
structured differently,” says Evan Anthony, a
Teams in all Shapes and Sizes
Industry experts say the one thing you can be
sure of is that every customer team is different,
“Work really runs at the speed of
retail, so you don’t have time to
figure out how to get a flight in
to get work done. You have to
be there, in person.”
Dina Howell, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi X
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FEATURE: CUSTOMER TEAMS
Customer Teams From
the Ground Up
In the mid-1980s, CPGs had the
“Most Walmart people didn’t want
clout. Most retailers were reus to be there, but Sam said to
gional – none were internagive us a chance.”
tional – and they typically
As soon as the P&G
viewed CPGs very tactically.
Walmart customer team
Suppliers influenced buywas announced, other reing, merchandising and
tailers were quick to react
logistics decisions, but
because they felt Walmart
they were not considered a
had gained a competistrategic part of the retailer’s
tive advantage. “As a result
business.
of starting those teams, P&G
The P&G customer team for
quickly went to Walmart competiTom Muccio
Walmart, established in 1987 and led
tors such as Target, Kmart and Costco.”
by Tom Muccio, changed all of that and put
It took other CPGs some time – 18 months
into motion a seismic shift in the retailerto two years – to get their own teams on
supplier relationship. “We realized we had
the ground in Bentonville and other retailer
been very arrogant,” says Muccio, who’s now
HQ cities. “They didn’t understand how
retired. “We measured everything by P&G’s
customer teams worked,” says Muccio. “”We
fiscal year, not the retailer’s. We had our
also tried to leverage P&G’s size, scale and
own internal measurements. We had seven
scope.”
or eight different product divisions, and we
These days, the customer team landscape
didn’t have anything that told what the total
has changed, Muccio says. “The dynamics
value of a customer was to P&G.”
are different. Retailers are the big dogs, not
Worst of all, he remembers, was the conCPGs. Five of P&G’s retailers have higher
frontational language. “We referred to them
sales than P&G does.”
as accounts, they called us vendors. We realShopper marketing is a growing opportuized that dynamic was ‘them’ against ‘us.’
nity, he adds, but both customer teams and
We needed to approach our customers on a
retailers have yet to fully push the envelope
more strategic basis.”
in terms of broader shopper themes such
Walmart welcomed the new customer
as health and wellness. “There is still money
team. At least, Walmart founder Sam Walton
being left on the table,” he says. “It will take
did. “He believed it showed the commitment
a breakthrough in thinking.”
of P&G wanting to change,” says Muccio.
— Sharon M. Goldman
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FEATURE: CUSTOMER TEAMS
growth. They expect us to fully engage along
the entire path to purchase, and they engage
and collaborate with us to win with their
shoppers.”
Every on-site customer team needs a leader, and these positions tend to be very senior,
says Howell. “I can’t think of anyone who is
not a vice president. And most often, they
are from sales or general management. They
need to be capable of running a multifunctional team.”
The bottom line is that the CPGs need to
fit their teams into the framework the retailer
works in, but how each manufacturer deals
with those challenges may be different, says
Mike McMahon, previously vice president of
integrated marketing at ConAgra Foods and
now head of shopper marketing at Datalogix.
“The way we put things in place at ConAgra
was to push the majority of the decision rights
for spending and program development into
retail shopper marketing consultant and former Kroger marketing executive who spent
more than 30 years with the retailer. “There
are different shapes, sizes, levels of support;
some have shopper marketing, some don’t.”
John Mount, vice president of commercial operations & marketing at The Coca-Cola
Co., previously co-led one of Coca-Cola’s total beverage customer teams in Cincinnati.
He says many of Coca-Cola’s teams include
field operations and national account executives to call on the largest customers’ divisions
and regions. In addition, they also typically
include cross-functional subject matter experts who support revenue management,
category management, finance and shopper
marketing.
“Our customers expect us to have all of the
key disciplines in place to help them win,”
Mount says. “They want a holistic value proposition that drives topline revenue and profit
“There’s nothing better than
when the entire customer team
is rallying around one common
vision or objective. Everyone
takes a lot of pride in working
to become our customer’s most
valued supplier.”
John Mount, vice president of commercial operations
& marketing, The Coca-Cola Co.
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FEATURE: CUSTOMER TEAMS
to work at retailers,” she says. “Others were
extremely skeptical.”
When McMahon joined ConAgra in 2004,
shopper marketing wasn’t part of most of
the company’s customer teams, which typically included folks from sales, operations and
category management. But retailers were becoming more sophisticated and were hiring
classically trained CPG marketers to head up
their own data-driven efforts.
“That put demands on the manufacturing community that the sales guys were not
prepared to fulfill,” says McMahon. “There
was a pressure from the retailer side for us to
become less fragmented and smarter about
how we won the confidence of our retailers.”
Those demands, he explains, turned into a
high-level organizational strategy discussion, which led to an increased investment
in an on-site shopper marketing presence at
Walmart, Albertsons and other retailers and
arming them with budgets and data.
“We pushed as many of our resources into
the field as we possibly could,” he says. “That
means all the shopper marketing people on
the Walmart team, the Publix team, the Safeway team – they all were pushed out to the
customer team location. Suddenly the head
of the Walmart team had a marketing insights
person he could lean on.”
the hands of the people in the field, but we
still made sure we touched base and had
people come back [to the Chicago office],” he
says. “Other companies pushed those rights
into the field, but connectivity didn’t always
come back.”
In addition, McMahon points out, at
ConAgra the on-site marketing team reported
to the CMO, whereas at other companies that
team might report up through sales. “And
often, a company might not be large enough
to deploy so many resources,” he says. “They
might bring in agencies to help cover a lot of
the gaps in coverage at HQ.”
Shopper Marketing Migrates
When the first customer teams evolved at the
largest retailers in the late 1980s, marketing
was not a part of the team’s structure. That all
changed when Howell joined P&G’s Walmart
team in 1997. “At P&G, we had begun to create
the concept of what we called customer marketing,” she says. “And we realized we could
work in conjunction with retailers to impact
shoppers and change their behavior at the
store level.”
Soon, Howell realized that P&G needed to
prove out their concepts – which included
the new-at-the-time concept of navigational signs to guide customers toward specific
aisles – and that she needed to be on-site – at
Walmart headquarters. “I was the lone wolf
out there,” she says.
There were, not surprisingly, various reactions to shopper marketers joining the
customer team. “Plenty of people were welcoming with open arms and appreciated the
investment to bring marketing knowledge
The Data-Driven Future
Many CPGs have not integrated shopper
marketing into their customer teams. “You’d
be shocked by how many brands don’t even
have one,” says Anthony. However, the advent
of data into marketing has, overall, shifted
the entire structure of on-site teams. “If there
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FEATURE: CUSTOMER TEAMS
was no big data, teams would look the same
way they did 10 years ago,” Anthony says.
“But now you have the maturity of Kroger
and Safeway and others. They demand a
common language between them and
their suppliers.”
The shopper, Howell emphasizes, is
firmly in charge – which means the future
for shopper marketing on customer teams is
very bright: “There is so much more potential
for collaboration between CPGs and retailers
than you could have imagined 20 years ago.
Shopper marketing has truly become integrated in how retailers and manufacturers go
to market.”
Who’s Who in
CUSTOMER
TEAMS
at Walmart
Abbott Nutrition
EMILY ANDERSON,
Associate Shopper
Marketing Manager
Anderson began her career
as a sales representative with
Abbott in Seattle but moved
to Bentonville for a position in sales analytics
for Abbott’s pediatrics brands at Walmart. Joining the company’s shopper marketing group
in 2013, she now supports the development of
shopper platforms based on insights that align
brand and customer marketing objectives to
create consumer-relevant programs.
Constant Collaboration,
Value-Added Solutions
The experience of working on an on-site customer team was “transformative,” says Howell, who adds that it allowed her to learn about
team dynamics and different functions that
all worked toward the same goals: delighting
shoppers, delighting retailers and growing
share for P&G.
“There’s nothing better than when the entire customer team is rallying around one common vision or objective. Everyone takes a lot
of pride in working to become our customer’s
most valued supplier,” says Mount about his
years on Coca-Cola’s customer team. “It’s a ton
of fun being in constant collaboration with the
customer and building a value-oriented relationship. You’re problem solving with the customer; you’re creating value-added solutions
that may not always be within your expertise,
and you’re engaging in different departments
SM
across the customer.”
Alcon Labs
ANDI PRATT, Senior
Shopper Marketing
Manager
Pratt serves as Alcon’s strategic retailer engagement
lead for Walmart and Target. She previously held positions at Nestlé
as Walmart shopper marketing for frozen
foods, JWT Action on the Nestlé account,
and CJRW agency supporting Tyson Foods.
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WHO’S WHO IN CUSTOMER TEAMS AT WALMART
Anheuser-Busch
is responsible for leading a cross-functional
team executing sales plans and developing
strategic marketing programs for sell-in to
Walmart. Prior to joining Barilla, Wade also
held a variety of sales roles at Sara Lee.
RANDY ORNSTEIN,
Vice President of Sales,
Walmart and Sam’s
Club, Anheuser-Busch
Team
Bayer HealthCare
Ornstein works with the
entire beer-buying team on its joint business plan process to drive beer sales. During
his 10-year career at Anheuser-Busch, he
has spent six in Bentonville on the category
team in various positions and has also led
category management efforts for the largeformat channel in St. Louis.
MARYBETH GOODMAN, Vice
President of Sales, National Mass
SCOTT MATHEWS, Team Leader
STEVE MORANTE, Vice President –
Field Sales
Beiersdorf
Barilla
CANDACE CLARK FRIEDMAN,
National Account Manager
NINA MLYNEK,
Shopper Marketing
Manager
Bic Consumer Products
USA
Mlynek is responsible for
strategy, planning and execution of retailer-specific
marketing programs at Walmart, Target,
Safeway and BJ’s. Prior to her work at Barilla,
she helped develop 52 new frozen food
corporate brand items for Kroger and also
worked for a consumer experience research
agency and clients such as P&G, Chrysler
and ConAgra.
MICHAEL SEVART,
Director of Sales,
Walmart/Sam’s Club
Team
Sevart has 20 years’ experience working in the retail
channel, the last 15 directly managing the
high-growth, high P&L focus of the Walmart/
Sam’s Club business. He has worked for
Walmart CPG supplier teams for companies
with brands such as Advil, Black & Decker
and Welch’s, and has a proven track record
of success at Walmart, earning multiple Supplier of the Year/Quarter awards.
JON WADE, Walmart
Team Leader
Wade has spent 14 years
with Barilla America, serving as Walmart Team Leader
for the past two years. He
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WHO’S WHO IN CUSTOMER TEAMS AT WALMART
Big Heart Pet Brands
The Clorox Co.
JEFF RATCLIFF, Vice President,
Sales, Walmart & Sam’s Club Team
JEFF TOMBLIN, Customer Team
Lead, Walmart
Bissell Homecare
The Coca-Cola Co.
STEVE GALEN, Senior Global
Director, Walmart/Sam’s Club
JAMES BECK,
Group Vice President,
Shopper Marketing
Brown-Forman
ALLAN JACKSON, Vice President,
Business Development
Beck and his team lead
shopper marketing collaboration efforts for Coca-Cola’s
portfolio of brands with Walmart and Sam’s
Club on both a national and local market
level. His work history includes 16 years
spanning brand, retail and digital signage
and shopper marketing.
Campbell Soup Co.
ROB GEHRING, President, Walmart
Global Team
TIM KWAN, Vice
President, Walmart U.S.
Colgate-Palmolive
ELIZABETH OWENS, National
Account Manager
Bumble Bee Seafoods
Prior to joining Campbell
three years ago, Kwan spent
10 years at Kraft Foods in
the U.S. and Canada. He is
currently focused on strategically aligning
Walmart HQ and the customer in both the
short and long term to achieve sustainable,
profitable and enterprise-wide growth.
PATRICK CASEY,
Shopper Marketing
Director, Walmart
Casey leads the shopper
marketing strategy and
execution for Colgate’s oral,
personal care and home care businesses
at Walmart. A marketing professional with
15 years of experience in brand/general
management and innovation with ColgatePalmolive, he has held senior-level Canadian,
global marketing and U.S. positions.
Church & Dwight
BRIAN LYNCH, Walmart Team
Leader
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WHO’S WHO IN CUSTOMER TEAMS AT WALMART
HANK SCHEPERS,
General Manager –
Walmart Team
Dell
KELLY MATTRAN,
Shopper Marketing
Account Manager
Schepers leads a cross-functional team on the ground
for Colgate’s largest global
customer. His responsibilities include full
P&L accountability, senior-level customer
engagement, strategic planning and people
development. Schepers has spent 29 years
with the company, most recently serving as
director for PetSmart.
Mattran recently joined
Dell’s shopper marketing account management group,
where she works on the mass/club channel
and partners with sales teams to lead shopper marketing agenda for Dell in Walmart,
Sam’s Club and Costco. Prior to joining Dell,
she worked for PepsiCo and Starbucks Corp.
ConAgra Foods
Disney Consumer
Products
ROBERT ROSALES, Senior Vice
President – Global Strategy
SUSAN VAN HOSEN,
Senior Vice President,
North America Sales
TOM LISI, Senior Director,
Shopper Marketing
With Disney in various roles
since 2001, Van Hosen leads
the Disney Integrated Retail
team in the U.S. and Canada, driving retail
strategy and sales for Disney Consumer
Products licensing, Disney Publishing, Disney
Interactive and Studio Home Entertainment
for licensed and vertical merchandise at key
retailers.
Conair Corp.
WILL MALATESTA, Walmart Team
Leader
Coty Beauty
PAUL PRITCHARD,
Vice President – Team
Leader, Walmart &
Sam’s Club
Dr Pepper Snapple Group
A senior leader with more
than 20 years of experience
in global sales and marketing, ranging from
startups to Fortune 100 companies, Pritchard
acts as the general manager for a cross-functional team of 24 people responsible for more
than 1,200 items at Walmart & Sam’s Club.
LEAH BACH, Shopper Marketing
Manager – Walmart
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WHO’S WHO IN CUSTOMER TEAMS AT WALMART
E&J Gallo Winery
Fleet Laboratories
JOE FARNAN, Vice President, Sales
KEVIN HANEY, Director
of Trade & Category
Development
Electronic Arts Inc.
As the Walmart Team leader
for Fleet Laboratories, Haney
is responsible for strategic
planning, tactical account management and
all related Walmart headquarter management
activities. He has also most recently held positions at McNeil Consumer Products/Johnson &
Johnson and DowBrands Personal Care.
T. RYAN JAMES, Senior
Director of Sales and
Team Leader, U.S. Mass
Merchant Channel
James is responsible for
the sales performance at
Walmart, Target, Best Buy and other retailers
representing half of Electronic Arts’ U.S. revenue results. Prior to joining the company
in 2003, he worked for Kimberly-Clark for 10
years.
General Mills
JAY PICCONATTO, Marketing Associate Director – Shopper Marketing
Energizer Personal Care
As the shopper marketing lead for General
Mills focused on Walmart initiatives, Picconatto has spent the past 15 years with the
CPG company in a variety of marketing roles
across its portfolio, from Big G cereals to
Green Giant vegetables.
ANDY KAUFMAN,
Senior Director,
Walmart Team
Kaufman leads a crossfunctional team to develop
and grow Energizer Personal
Care’s diverse portfolio for Walmart. With
more than 20 years of experience, he has
led customer and internal strategy teams to
deliver shopper solutions across Fortune 500
retailers, brands and consumer channels.
ADAM DILL, Vice President,
Walmart Team U.S.
Georgia-Pacific
MONICA BREITHAUPT, Vice
President, Retail Sales (Walmart &
Sam’s Club)
H.J. Heinz Co.
MAX WETZEL, Vice President,
Global Walmart Business Unit
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WHO’S WHO IN CUSTOMER TEAMS AT WALMART
Hallmark Cards
Walmart and Sam’s Club on all of the brands
within the beverage company’s portfolio.
WAYNE STRICKLAND,
President & GM,
Walmart Team
TODD PASTOR, National Account
Director, Walmart & Sam’s Club
Pastor develops short- and long-term strategy for Heineken USA in relation to Walmart
and Sam’s Club. He leads the company’s
national team focused against both retailers to align with key strategies and tactics
to deliver sales growth while also delivering
joint business plan goals and objectives for
Heineken USA.
Strickland is responsible
for the development of the
long-term strategy for the
Walmart business as well as delivering the
top and bottom line goals for both Hallmark
and Walmart.
Hamilton Beach Brands
Inc.
The Hershey Co.
JASON OGLESBY, Senior Director,
Team Lead
JEFFREY HARSH, Walmart Team
Leader
JENNI PUSTINGER,
Senior Director,
Shopper Marketing,
Walmart/Sam’s Club
Team
Hasbro Inc.
BARRY HARRIS, Interim Team Lead
and Vice President of Sales - Team
Walmart
DEBORAH RUDZIK, Vice President/
General Manager – Walmart Sales &
Customer Strategic Marketing
Pustinger joined The Hershey Co. nearly three years ago after 17 years
in marketing at P&G. She is responsible for
the marketing strategy and plans for the
company at Walmart and Sam’s Club.
Heineken USA
BETH FREEMAN,
Commercial Marketing
Manager
J.M. Smucker Co.
JEFF GREER, Vice President,
Walmart Team
Freeman has been supporting Walmart and Sam’s Club
for the past 15 years at Kraft
Foods, Clorox and Nestlé USA before taking
on her current role at Heineken. She develops channel activation strategies for both
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WHO’S WHO IN CUSTOMER TEAMS AT WALMART
The Jel Sert Co.
Kimberly-Clark
JOSEPH BOUMA,
Vice President,
Walmart/Sam’s Team
ARIST MASTORIDES, Vice President,
Global Walmart Team Lead
SARA G. LEONARD,
Director of Shopper
Marketing, Walmart Inc.
Bouma leads the strategy
development and retail
execution for Jel Sert’s
Walmart and Sam’s Club team. He oversees
the partnerships with both internal and external stakeholders, establishes and reports
sales targets, and leads the company’s team
of business development managers, retail
execution managers and replenishment
managers.
Starting with shopper insights, Leonard oversees the
shopper marketing team
in building Kimberly-Clark’s brands to differentiate its customers and drive category
growth with an omnichannel approach. She
recently joined the company after working
at Clorox in shopper marketing for 10 years.
Johnson & Johnson
Kraft Foods Group
JAMES ELY, General
Manager, Walmart
Global
GINA ALLGAIER,
Marketing Director,
Kraft Walmart Team
Having been in shopper
marketing on Walmart since
2009, Allgaier partners shopper insights and data with cutting-edge
technology to get results. By leveraging
digital, social and mobile technology with
earned engagement tools and inspirational
in-store POS, she has been successful with
multiple platforms such as Walmart’s annual
s’mores campaign and the recent “Great
American Cheeseburger” program.
Kellogg Co.
AARON ELLEMAN, Senior Director,
Shopper Marketing, Walmart &
Sam’s Club
SCOTT ROBERTS, Senior Vice
President of Sales, Walmart
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WHO’S WHO IN CUSTOMER TEAMS AT WALMART
ALLISHA WATKINS,
Shopper Marketing
Manager, Walmart &
Sam’s Club
Land O’Lakes
ZAK LOWE, Director –
Walmart Inc. Team
Lowe has spent the past 11
years with Land O’Lakes in
various sales and customer/
trade marketing assignments. He currently drives strategy, structure, human resources and execution of the
cross-functional team including sales, retail,
shopper activation, analytics, IT, etc., growing the Walmart business.
Watkins brings more than 12
years of marketing, market research, strategic planning and project management experience to her role at Mars Chocolate
for Walmart and Sam’s Club. She is focused on
working cross-functionally with key customers,
internal stakeholders and strategic partners to
deliver the best solutions for shoppers.
Mars Petcare
Lindt & Sprungli
SUSAN BENNETT,
Shopper Marketing
Manager
STEVE WILSON, Team Leader –
Walmart/Sam’s Club
Bennett is new to the Mars
organization. She spent seven
years with Kellogg, most
recently in shopper marketing for Sam’s Club
and prior to that as the company’s brand
growth manager for the frozen breakfast and
vegetable categories at Walmart. In her new
position, she manages Mars Petcare shopper
marketing for Walmart and Sam’s Club.
Mars Chocolate North
America
HARVEY MILLAR,
Vice President Sales,
Walmart
Over the past 19 years with
Mars Inc., Millar has worked
in sales and marketing leadership positions across diverse customers,
channels and international geographies.
He now oversees the customer relationship
with Walmart and all P&L for his business. He
is also site director for the company’s office
in Northwest Arkansas with more than 90
associates supporting the Mars chocolate,
petcare, gum and food segments.
RICK DAW, Managing
Director, Walmart
Global Team
Daw has been with Mars
for 34 years, working across
confectionary, frozen and
food divisions. He currently leads the company’s Walmart Inc. cross-functional team as
well as representing its Walmart Mars Petcare global team.
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WHO’S WHO IN CUSTOMER TEAMS AT WALMART
VANESSA KING, Senior
Key Account Manager
Mead Johnson
JEFF BRAZZEAL, Director,
U.S. Walmart Team
King leads the Mike’s Hard
sales efforts at Walmart
and Sam’s Club. She works
collaboratively with Mike’s
shopper marketing team to develop in-store
marketing and digital programs.
The Mentholatum Co.
CURT T. YEFTICH,
Team Leader/Director
of Sales, Walmart &
Sam’s Club
MillerCoors
Yeftich manages the Bentonville-based sales team,
responsible for the Walmart & Sam’s Club
U.S. business. He has more than 25 years of
experience in the industry working for such
companies as Pfizer, Mars Inc. and Chattem,
and 14 years of experience working on the
Walmart and Sam’s Club businesses.
BRIAN FEIRO, Vice
President, National
Account – Walmart
& Sam’s Club
Feiro leads the strategic and
tactical plan development,
alignment and execution to deliver on joint
business metrics while growing capabilities of the MillerCoors system. Prior to his
current position, he held various roles in
distributor management, sales operations,
planning strategy, revenue management
and pricing strategy, as well as customer
leadership.
Mike’s Hard Lemonade
BRIAN FELTER,
Manager, Shopper
Marketing
Felter spent six years in
various sales and marketing
roles with Anheuser-Busch
before moving over to Mike’s Hard Lemonade three years ago. He is responsible for
shopper marketing strategy and execution
across Walmart and Sam’s Club, working
with the internal key account team to develop in-store retail programs for the company’s portfolio of brands.
DAVID HARRIS, Customer
Marketing Manager
Harris works with MillerCoors’ marketing
teams to bring programming to life in a way
that engages Walmart and Sam’s Club shoppers. His background includes positions at
agencies such as ThompsonMurray, Saatchi
& Saatchi X and The Integer Group.
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WHO’S WHO IN CUSTOMER TEAMS AT WALMART
Mondelez International
Nestlé Purina PetCare
TODD HANUS, Vice
President, Sales,
Walmart & Sam’s Club
DUSTIN PRUITT,
Team Leader – Walmart
Pruitt leads the sales and
business development efforts of Nestlé Purina PetCare’s pet food and cat litter
businesses at Walmart.
Hanus has 20 years’ experience in various R&D, trade
marketing, strategy and
sales roles. He currently leads Mondelez
sales for both Walmart and Sam’s Club. TONY DIMATTIA, Senior Shopper
Marketing Manager
CAROLYN KUTZ, Director, Category
and Shopper Insights, Walmart and
Sam’s Club
Nestlé USA
Responsible for driving a comprehensive
analytic approach to the interpretation of
category performance and providing qualitative and quantitative assessments to the
sales team, Kutz works with key stakeholders, competitive activity, and issues and/
or accomplishments that might affect sales
results.
STACEY HUTT, Manager,
Field Shopper Marketing
Hutt leads shopper marketing strategy and
activation for Nestlé’s Walmart team across
the portfolio of frozen brands. She has spent
five years in CPG working for Nestlé USA.
Her responsibilities have included retail sales
for Southern California grocery accounts,
analytics and most field shopper marketing.
LAUREN WRIGHT,
Associate Director,
Shopper Marketing
COREY KLEIN,
Manager, Field
Shopper Marketing
Wright has spent her 10-year
career in shopper marketing
and sales roles supporting
Walmart. She is currently responsible for
shopper marketing strategy and activation
that drives Mondelez business in Walmart
and Sam’s Club. Prior to joining the company in 2013, she spent nearly five years with
ConAgra Foods.
Klein has spent the past 12
years working for both the
Nestlé Purina and Nestlé USA
operating companies. Recent responsibilities
have included both corporate and field-based
shopper marketing management roles. He currently leads shopper marketing strategy and
activation on the Nestlé Walmart team across
its portfolio of ambient and chilled brands.
JACK SEE, Vice President
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WHO’S WHO IN CUSTOMER TEAMS AT WALMART
Nice-Pak Products Inc.
at both retailers. Starting his career at SmithKline Beecham, he has worked for both large
and small companies.
DIANE YITRI, Vice President of
Sales Walmart/Sam’s Club
PepsiCo
Nickelodeon
MICHAEL DEL POZZO,
Vice President/GM,
Customer Management
(Walmart Customer
Team), Frito-Lay
KEN MANTEL, Senior Vice
President, Retail Development,
Walmart & Sam’s Club
Novartis Consumer
Health
Del Pozzo serves as team
lead of the Frito-Lay Walmart business, leading a cross-functional team in delivering the
largest PepsiCo customer P&L globally. His
team consistently partners with Walmart in
delivering omnichannel customer solutions
that align with the strategic priorities of PepsiCo and Walmart collectively.
MICHAEL SEWELL,
Team Leader - Director
of Sales, Walmart
Sewell leads the U.S.
Walmart Novartis team
to deliver sales and profit
objectives, developing and implementing
short- and long-term strategic plans and developing the strategic relationship with the
customer. Prior to joining the company two
years ago, he also held positions at Pharmavite and Dial/Henkel for more than 25 years.
BRAD HOENER,
Vice President/
General Manager,
Beverages, PepsiCo
Sam’s Club Team
Hoener manages the crossfunctional team across the PepsiCo beverage business at Sam’s Club. Since joining
PepsiCo he has led the National Category
Management organization for Quaker, Tropicana and Gatorade and the PepsiCo Strategy
and Insights team across the Walmart and
Sam’s Club businesses. After moving into
sales, he led the Quaker Walmart business
before taking on his current position.
Oberto Brands
JEFF WAKELIN, Field
Vice President of Sales,
Mass/Club
Wakelin is charged with
managing Oberto Brands’
Walmart/Sam’s Club business. He drives innovation internally to win
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WHO’S WHO IN CUSTOMER TEAMS AT WALMART
CHRISTINA
MENENDEZ, Vice
President, Shopper
Marketing and
eCommerce Sales –
PepsiCo Walmart
Customer Team
MARISA PEREZ,
Senior Director,
Shopper Marketing,
Walmart Inc., Frito-Lay
Perez is responsible for the
Frito-Lay portfolio strategy, brand development and activation at
Walmart and Sam’s Club. She collaborates
cross-functionally to deliver volume, profit
and share goals within Walmart Inc. and
leads the marketing relationships with retail
partners.
After 10 years in Frito-Lay’s Snacks Division, Menendez recently joined PepsiCo’s
Walmart customer team, responsible for
driving partnership and collaboration
between PepsiCo and Walmart to create
distinct programming that reinforces and
elevates the brand narrative while also creating a unique shopper experience to drive
conversion.
Pfizer Consumer
Healthcare
KATHRYN BECKER,
Senior Manager,
Shopper Marketing
WILLIAM LANGFORD,
Senior Director,
Shopper Marketing
Becker has 12 years of experience in the CPG industry,
often working on Walmart
accounts. She currently represents all Pfizer
Consumer Healthcare brands such as Nexium 24HR, Advil, Centrum, ChapStick and
Robitussin, and she most recently led the
shopper marketing efforts for the over-thecounter switch of Nexium at Walmart.
Langford has spent 15 years
with the beverage company,
first at Frito-Lay and then
on the beverages business in various field
and shopper marketing roles. He is currently
responsible for leading the development of
shopper marketing programs and initiatives
at Walmart.
MARIO PALOMINO, Director of
Sales
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WHO’S WHO IN CUSTOMER TEAMS AT WALMART
SHANNON COX,
Business Development
Manager
Procter & Gamble
JACQUES HAGOPIAN,
Walmart Global
Customer Team
Marketing Director
Cox leads the business development for digestive
healthcare. He most recently
led the over-the-counter switch of Nexium
at Walmart, and Nexium 24HR is now a topselling proton-pump inhibitor at Walmart.
He has more than 15 years of experience in
the industry, working at Pfizer, Nintendo of
America, 3M Co. and TracFone Wireless.
JEFFREY K. SCHOMBURGER,
President – Global Walmart Team
Pharmavite
RB (formerly Reckitt
Benckiser)
JOHN STARE, Vice President Sales,
Global Walmart & Sam’s Club
JOSH SAFFRAN, Vice President,
Sales – Walmart U.S.
With Colgate-Palmolive for 13 years, Saffran
moved to RB in October 2013. He is responsible
for driving RB and Walmart market share, net
revenue, overall P&L and joint business plans
within the consumables division at Walmart.
Pinnacle Foods Corp.
CHUCK ARNOLD, Senior Vice
President, Walmart/Sam’s Club Team
SCOTT LARSON, Senior Director,
Sales – Walmart Team
RICH ZAZZU, Global
Vice President –
Walmart
Prestige Brands
Zazzu has 20 years of experience in various sales leadership and trade marketing
roles. He has been with RB for nine years, the
last seven of which he has been responsible
for leading the global Walmart organization.
GREGG HOGUE, Senior Director
of Sales/Team Lead – Walmart and
Sam’s Club
Reynolds Consumer
Products
STAN LUCAS, Vice President,
Sales – Walmart
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WHO’S WHO IN CUSTOMER TEAMS AT WALMART
S.C. Johnson & Son Inc.
Spectrum Brands/United
Industries
GREG BLAIR, Senior
Director, Sales Account
Management, Walmart
Team Lead
SUSAN ABRAHAMS, Division Vice
President – Walmart Platform Team
Leader
Blair leads the cross-functional team responsible for
S.C. Johnson’s business development at
Walmart U.S. He has more than 20 years of
experience with the company in a variety of
field sales and customer marketing roles.
Starbucks
MIKE COOK, Director, Walmart &
Sam’s Club – Customer Business
Development
JAY LEFFORGE, Director, Shopper
Marketing, Walmart & Club
Tyson Foods
PAUL DAVIS, Vice President –
Customer Development
Samsung
JASON NICHOL, Vice
President, Walmart
Packaged Goods
PAUL WOOD, Vice
President, Walmart
& Sam’s Club Team
Nichol joined Tyson Foods
less than a year ago after
spending 20 years representing other CPG companies such as Nabisco, Cott and Scotts Miracle-Gro. He now
leads the cross-functional Walmart team for
Tyson’s packaged goods business, which
includes the Tyson, Jimmy Dean, Hillshire
Farm, Ball Park, State Fair, Sara Lee and
Wright brands.
Wood leads the Walmart
and Sam’s Club teams and is
responsible for sales, replenishment, category management, marketing and retail. Prior to joining Samsung,
he spent more than 17 years in the CPG
industry with Frito-Lay, H.J. Heinz and Dean
Foods.
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WHO’S WHO IN CUSTOMER TEAMS AT WALMART
JOHN BOWDEN,
Customer Team
Leader, Walmart
Ubisoft
JOHN CAREY, Sales Lead – Walmart
SCOTT HOROWITZ,
Senior Shopper
Marketing Manager
Bowden has been at Welch’s
for nine years, first as category advisor to Walmart,
then as business development manager
and, for the past three years, as customer
team leader for Welch’s on several businesses, currently bottled and sparkling.
Horowitz worked at Best Buy
for more than six years in the
corporate office as a buyer
and Web planner for video games, but three
years ago moved to the supplier side to apply his retail knowledge, insights and passion. He currently leads shopper marketing
programs at Walmart and Target in support
of Ubisoft’s game launches.
Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co.
TOM DIFFENBACH, Vice President,
Sales
KELLEY WALCZAK,
Shopper Marketing
Manager – Walmart
& Sam’s Club
Unilever
JIM BREACH, Vice President,
Customer Development
Walczak has 10 years of
CPG experience between
her time at Kellogg and Wrigley working in
cross-functional roles including category
management, channel marketing and shopper marketing and supporting all classes of
trade. Currently she leads Wrigley’s shopper
marketing strategy and activation plan development for Walmart and Sam’s Club.
AARON CRANDALL, Shopper
Marketing Director
Welch’s
DOUG BATIE, Vice President,
Walmart and Sam’s Club
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