2021 Women of Excellence, Innovator Winners

2021 Women of Excellence, Innovator Winners:Jacquelyn Baker, Executive Vice President, VMLY&R Commerce, VMLY&RJacquelyn Baker doesn’t like to settle for the status quo. She possesses an innate ability to set a vision and innovate solutions to achieve it, maintaining an eye toward both short- and long-term success.In November 2020, WPP introduced VMLY&R Commerce, an end-to-end creative commerce company, in response to new consumer expectations. Baker, a 10-year VMLY&R veteran, played an integral role in planning and executing the merger, and helping to reimagine the role commerce channels play to ensure marketers think beyond the confines of digital alone. She now serves as the unit’s executive vice president. Built on the retail heritage of Geometry and scaled through the agency’s connected brand promise, VMLY&R Commerce has set out to help modern brands grow by unifying marketing strategies around commerce. Baker sits on the company’s North American Executive Committee and manages a portfolio of more than $15 million. Her work contributed to VMLY&R being named the top advertising network for 2020, with a nearly 5% year-over-year revenue growth in North America. With a marketing and international business degree from the University of Cincinnati, Baker also holds an MBA from University of Phoenix. She began her career in category and account management before becoming a marketing manager in strategy and planning at Luxottica Retail. In early 2010, she moved to The Creative Department as a senior brand leader and then to Rockfish for the next six years. She moved under the VMLY&R umbrella in August 2017 as managing director and has held her current post for one year.Baker’s knowledge of retail ecosystems and ability to help clients optimize customer experience across digital transformation was the impetus behind her formalizing the launch of a new practice at VMLY&R Commerce, focused on Commerce Customer Experience (CCX). Overseeing a team of more than 70, she is responsible for ensuring this expertise is brought forward across all businesses.Elizabeth Harris, Chief Strategy Officer, Arc WorldwideElizabeth Harris has a “relentless curiosity” about people — how they think, feel, behave and shop — and an unmatched passion for continued learning, innovation and reinvention. As chief strategy officer at Arc Worldwide, she has fueled transformational growth across the agency and broadly throughout the organization.Harris graduated from Indiana University with a degree in communications and psychology. She started her career in marketing research at The Chicago Tribune. Moving to the client side at Grey Advertising and then Young & Rubicam in New York, she transitioned to advertising brand strategy. Back in Chicago after eight years, Harris went from building brands to also activating them at DraftFCB. She has been in the Leo Burnett Group at Arc Worldwide in strategy and planning roles for the last 11 years, elevating to her current post in early 2018. Harris is also an adjunct professor at Northwestern University, teaching shopper marketing in its graduate program for more than nine years.Harris’ drive to keep Arc on the leading edge of commerce spurred her to create Arc’s “Archer” operating system — a proprietary platform that leverages several interconnected data tools to reveal not only the resistance that keeps people from purchasing products, but also strategies to overcome that and help brands and categories grow. Backed by Epsilon data, Archer fuels insights on 255 million U.S. shoppers at the unique ID level, providing customized data solutions for clients.Harris also founded Strategy University, a first-of-its-kind educational program to help fellow teammates in any field learn, grow and evolve their strategy craft. Launched in early 2021, the tool took a full year to conceptualize, design and execute. Recently, the platform was made available to the entire Publicis Groupe network through internal AI platform Marcel, with more than 30 courses available.Colleen Kelly, Head of Trade & Shopper Marketing, Anheuser-BuschDuring her 10-year career at Anheuser-Busch (A-B), Colleen Kelly has held strategy, distributor and field sales roles after graduating from the beer maker’s global management trainee program. She moved into the company’s trade and shopper marketing practices in a regional position at the end of 2015, and assumed leadership at the national level in 2018, now based in New York.The necessity for innovation spurred on by the pandemic forced Kelly and her team to rethink a go-to-market plan that previously relied heavily on in-store merchandising, sports sponsorships and live events. She worked with the experiential team and key retail partners to support the Cinco De Mayo holiday; Reventon, a portfolio-driven program in-store and online, became the company’s virtual music festival for both consumers and shoppers; and “Homegating” options gave consumers the opportunity to engage at-home through recipes, partnerships and football gear.Finding new routes to market and vendor partnerships allowed A-B to quadruple its digital sampling in 2020, creating a more targeted shopper approach that has scaled in 2021. Kelly’s leadership was crucial in response to ever-changing market conditions, accelerating timelines on digital pilots already in the pipeline, and collaborating with retail partners to modify existing promotional plans.A key contributor to The Vault, a state-of-the-art collaboration center housed on A-B’s St. Louis campus that opened in July, Kelly is building a series of connected commerce learning modules about winning in-store, the digital shopping journey and other topics that will introduce new technologies and ideas to drive these strategic partnerships.The Babson College graduate earned a bachelor’s degree in business management and is currently pursuing her MBA in business analytics and machine learning. She also completed a 12-month coaching program with BetterUp in 2020-2021, and is currently in the Global Women’s Leadership Program at ABI and the co-chair of its U.S. Women in Beer and Beyond ERG.Melissa King, Director, E-Commerce Operations, Lowes FoodsMelissa King knows how to build high-performing teams and drive revenue for multi-unit stores within the retail, grocery and specialty food industries. With extensive experience in field operations, e-commerce, human resources, sales, marketing, finance and management, she is currently responsible for leading the e-commerce and omnichannel practices and operational execution for more than 76 stores across three states for Lowes Foods.A graduate of Pensacola State College with a degree in business, management, marketing and related support services, King also earned her MBA in global business administration from Oxford Brookes University in 2020.Having spent more than 10 years at Academy Sports + Outdoors as an operations manager, then in human resources at Bass Pro Shops and as a store manager at Big Lots, she moved into grocery at The Fresh Market in 2012 as a store manager before having two stints as a regional manager of operations. She stayed in operations, moving to Lucky’s Market for two years before joining Lowes Foods in March of 2020. She also served as president and CEO of Spot On Recruiting from late 2019 until November 2021.As director of Lowes Foods’ e-commerce operations since May 2020, King oversaw the triple-digit growth of e-commerce sales that year. She also developed the first-ever curbside impulse program in the country sponsored by Coca-Cola, instituted a “Locker Pick-Up” program and execution to include cutting-edge B2B strategy, implemented drone usage and a coordinating “go forward” plan, and designed pickup and parking lot areas to include new fixtures, signage and paint.Under her leadership, Lowes Foods has been recognized by FlyBuy as having the lowest curbside wait times in the U.S., and the retailer has been identified by Dunnhumby as the No. 1 grocer and No. 3 retailer for guest experience, convenience and safest store to shop.Deb Kreider, Director, Meat & Seafood, The Giant Co.Under Deb Kreider’s leadership, the meat and seafood departments throughout The Giant Co. have seen significant improvements in meeting the needs of today’s families. Kreider began her career with the retailer nearly 30 years ago and has been a part of numerous industry innovations along the way. She currently serves as director, meat and seafood, which includes leadership of category management, merchandising and pricing, representing approximately 14% of the overall business.With a degree in business administration from the University of Maryland, Kreider joined The Giant Co. in operations in 1991, working within its stores for nine years. She then transitioned to corporate and has held several positions over the years, moving to her current post in January 2019.Kreider has taken the initiative to evolve processes and operations in order to more fully meet the needs of today’s customers and actively promote one of the retailer’s three philanthropic pillars: Healing Our Planet. She has led efforts to eliminate the use of Styrofoam in the meat and seafood departments, converting to PET recyclable trays instead.Also, as the pandemic intensified and meat supply was constrained, she worked creatively to keep as much product as possible safely in the stores. Between the first and second weeks of March 2020, meat department sales increased by approximately 75% and steadily grew, with an innovative new assortment of packages and product mixes that were added under her leadership.In August 2020, Kreider led the launch of the company’s private-label Cook-in-Bag line of meat and seafood items, offering families easy, nutritious, affordable meals. She strategically positioned the line for success through a comprehensive marketing and promotional plan that began with meat managers trying the products at home with their families and encouraging team members across the brand to do the same through a special exclusive promotion.Mary Mooney, Owner and CEO, Mooney FarmsMary Mooney started Mooney Farms 35 years ago to support her family. But she very quickly began to make her mark in the grocery industry with her innovative mindset and business acumen. She gained the respect of buyers (mainly male) in the retail produce department in 1986, sold the idea of marketing her kiwi jam next to the fresh kiwi fruit, and introduced “value-added” merchandising to the produce department, now a widely used strategy across the country.As a pioneer in the retail category of sun-dried tomatoes in U.S. markets with its Bella Sun Luci brand, Mooney has been consistently challenged to stay on the forefront of innovation and new product offerings, such as the company’s newest addition to the snack category, plant-based tomato jerky. The vegan jerky is made from California-grown sun-dried tomatoes that undergo an intense pressured process to create the three clean-label ingredient flavors. It contains 80% less sodium than traditional jerkies and appeals to consumers looking for a plant-based, on-the-go, better-for-you snack.The new product was named “Artisan Plant-Based Jerky of 2021” from the Tasty Awards and was recognized as the best overall meatless product of the year by the Mindful Awards.A graduate of California State University, Chico, with a degree in information communications, Mooney continues to give back to the students of her community by supporting local universities and taking part in local fundraisers each year. She has also continued her sustainable efforts as a female farmer, producing olives for her olive oil product lines including estate grown Arbequina olive oil, and new extra virgin olive oil dressings that are on track to launch in 2022.Surabhi Pokhriyal, Global Head of Digital Commerce, Colgate-PalmoliveSurabhi Pokhriyal has led the charter on digital transformation and e-commerce acceleration for several Fortune 100 companies. Her expertise lies in leading cross-functional P&L and budget management with multi-geography teams in North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America, transforming digital marketing and frictionless commerce. She currently heads global e-commerce for Colgate-Palmolive. Pokhriyal is an engineer and earned her MBA from the National Institute of Industrial Engineers, one of India’s top business schools. Her work experience includes time at Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Cognizant and Johnson & Johnson before assuming her current role at Colgate-Palmolive in January 2021.During the past year, Pokhriyal has championed several new processes and controls to establish new and sustainable operations in marketing of consumer products, such as recognizing a paradigm shift for in-store purchases (more about experience and less about product), actioning SUMO (straight up missing out) versus acknowledging FOMO (fear of missing out), and optimizing media. She also led the company’s future-state and readiness efforts, working to transform a 215-year-old company with new thinking, including embracing technology; adopting AI and cloud computing that drives automation; strategizing convenience as the new normal and understanding how to partner with Instacart, Uber Eats and other “non-traditional” players; and retraining individuals in the organization to focus on how to use technology as an enabler to making better decisions that will impact sales, share and profits.Pokhriyal is a regular speaker at industry conferences and podcasts on digital transformation and e-commerce, and a member of the CGT/RIS executive council and Digital Shelf Institute. She’s also a co-creator of the Women in E-Commerce executive forum, and a mentor/advisor to e-commerce technology providers, venture capital and entrepreneur roundtables.

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