2022 Women of Excellence, Business Excellence

Chrissy Arsenault

Brand Manager
Church & Dwight

Prior to assuming her current role earlier this year, Chrissy Arsenault was Church & Dwight’s e-commerce brand manager for health and well-being. In that role, she led the growth of the brands under this umbrella by 24.9% versus 2020 and achieved gross sales targets. She led two e-commerce exclusive launches for Trojan and First Response, as well as the first portfolio basket-building campaign, and saw the Trojan Bareskin Raw become the No. 3 best-selling condom in Q4 2021.

As a classically trained CPG brand manager, Arsenault has held various roles within shopper marketing/sales strategy, brand management, innovations and e-commerce. She holds a bachelor’s degree in nutritional sciences from Cornell University and an MBA in marketing from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business.

Now, as brand manager for Vitafusion, she leads a team of five direct reports and manages the P&L for the brand.

Beyond her brand management responsibilities, she mentors underprivileged youth through the Starfish Project and has served in various board member positions for local dietetics associations. She is passionate about DEI initiatives as an immigrant to the United States, and mentors young women, especially those of color, to realize their full potential.

Kelly Burt

Vice President of Sales and Business Development
Quad

Kelly Burt approaches every new project or customer with a consultative, problem-solving approach, understanding clients’ brand essence, business drivers, needs and pain points — then leads the development of client-specific solutions that capitalize on Quad’s unique integrated marketing platform. Burt assumed her current post in 2019 and has consistently guided double-digit growth ever since.

As vice president of sales and business development for Quad’s In-Store Division, she has expanded its client portfolio from mainly big-box retail companies to other industry verticals, including specialty retail, pharmacy and grocery. She was instrumental in developing a holistic solutions approach that shortens production times, reduces in-store labor costs, cuts waste, centralizes marketing operations, offsets carbon impacts by reducing the number of kits shipping to each store location, and eliminates obsolete inventory through strategic fulfillment solutions.

Burt’s leadership was essential to this year’s launch of the InVision suite of offerings, which allows the company to create virtual store environments from concepting and testing, flow in various concepts for outfitting a store with a focus on eye tracking, and optimize creative messaging/display format to increase conversion rates. She also helped lead the formulation of the In-Store Division’s approach to operate more sustainably in support of the company’s environmental, social and governance strategy and commitments.

Milagros Cabrera

CEO
The Retail Group

As the founder and owner of the largest merchandising services provider in Puerto Rico, Milagros Cabrera made her childhood vision of becoming an entrepreneur come true. She now leads an organization of more than 1,000 employees between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, works with more than 2,000 products in all consumer categories, and covers 600 retail establishments on the island, working with brands such as Colgate-Palmolive, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, SC Johnson Wax, Nestle, Bayer and others.

From an early age, she knew she wanted to run a business, but also contribute to making the world a better place. Her first entrepreneurial experience was as owner/partner of Pretzel Zone, which opened in a Walmart facility in Isabela, Puerto Rico. Next, she went to a water bottling company and closed deals with major supermarket chains to deliver their private label under Food Club Bottled Water. She also launched the first 3-in-1 gallon package, still sold in the local bottled water market.

In her 22 years in the industry, she has become an extension of her clients’ business and has a strong voice in their marketing strategies. Cabrera is active in many professional associations, and five years ago expanded her knowledge and expertise to the Dominican Republic market with an average annual growth of 30% above the previous year’s plans.

Heather Collins

Executive Vice President, Account Director
Arc Worldwide

Heather Collins rejoined the Publicis Groupe in April 2021, charged with leading the Unilever account at Arc Worldwide. She had spent the past decade on the agency side at Catapult, Epsilon and, most recently, iCrossing, after an equally long tenure at Sara Lee Foods/Hillshire Brands. Tapped to help build “a commerce model of the future” as executive vice president of business leadership, she now leads a team of more than 130 people across Publicis Groupe’s Arc, Epsilon and Hawkeye agencies.

Together, the team has managed the creation and execution of more than 2,500 shopper programs since earning Unilever’s U.S. retail, e-commerce and shopper marketing business. Today, Collins is focused on building out “The Hive,” Arc’s proprietary shopper intelligence hub that helps her team understand shoppers and prospects as unique individuals. Backed by Publicis Groupe’s No. 1 identity platform, Epsilon, in conjunction with Unilever’s first-party data, the platform spans across five categories, more than 30 brands and 40 projects focusing on how shopper strategy meets activation through the power of data.

As a leader, Collins prioritizes career mapping and teaching good shopper marketing practices to her team in an effort to retain talent and encourage career growth, while helping Unilever navigate the ever-evolving nature of commerce and CPG.

Katie Hollimon

Omnichannel Marketing Manager – Lowe’s, Ace & Farm Channel
The Scotts Miracle-Gro Co.

Katie Hollimon joined Scotts Miracle-Gro in 2020, charged with leading shopper marketing across multiple strategic retail partners. In her first two years, she transformed the shopper ecosystem within the hardware and home improvement channels.

Hollimon is directly responsible for increasing and securing priority placement on key retailer platforms and channels, which leads to an increase in share of voice by high double digits year over year. She also developed and sold in a new initiative within the hardware distributor channel that resulted in a 600% increase in local digital media, allowing the company to have a greater impact on how co-op funds were spent.

Hollimon launched the company’s backyard OACEIS - Shopper Campaign, its first-ever, cross-category partnership for Scotts, with Ace and Weber. She leveraged key shopper and consumer insights to build a program that inspired and engaged shoppers and drove strong sales results. The program delivered a total omni-campaign, resulting in maintaining sales against a massive growth year.

Prior to Scotts, Hollimon had more than 11 years of experience across brand and agency roles where she led strategy, planning and innovation for iconic brands such as Dairy Queen, Land O’Lakes & Stainmaster.

Anne Martin

Director, National Accounts
Mondelez International

During her tenure at Mondelez, Anne Martin has built a strong partnership with Albertsons Cos., often being recognized as a best-in-class partner and helping the retail giant drive incremental and sustaining category growth. A veteran of the agency side — having served in account management positions at both Upshot and Geometry Global in her early career — she moved to Mondelez in 2016.

In her role as customer director, shopper marketing, Martin contributed to the unprecedented growth Mondelez and its snack portfolio experienced post-COVID. In 2021, she was responsible for the shopper marketing activities for Albertsons corporate as well as all 13 divisions. Her work with the retailer has seen the Mondelez cookie/cracker share move from 54% to 59%, representing one of the highest share growths in the country over the past five years.

Martin’s work has also produced some of the highest ROI programming, measured via The Mars Agency’s Marilyn tool across $100 million of spending and 15 customers. Additionally, Albertsons commerce programming has averaged a 64% higher ROI than the average for all other Mondelez customers over the past four years.

In April 2022, she was tapped to lead all commerce marketing activities across Kroger, Albertsons and Target, and assumed the role of director of national accounts at Mondelez.

Cassie Ross

Senior Customer Marketing Manager
Henkel

Cassie Ross knows how to drive brand growth at Walmart. Over the past 15 years, she has watched the industry evolve from customer marketing to shopper marketing and now connected commerce — while aligning the goals of sales and brand teams to develop business-driving programs that deliver category growth for Walmart and Sam’s Club.

Ross joined Henkel Consumer Brands in 2014 as national account manager for Walmart before becoming national business manager at Sam’s Club, where she developed and executed incremental shopper marketing programs for its All, Persil and Snuggle brands.

Last fall, she assumed her current role as senior customer marketing manager for Walmart, charged with leading Henkel’s beauty brands in addition to the laundry and home care portfolio. The company’s “We Speak Laundry” — a first-of-its-kind shopper marketing program designed to deliver incremental sales across Henkel’s entire laundry portfolio while driving category growth for Walmart — broke the mold for marketing in the laundry category and earned a Reggie Award last spring.

Ross has also worked at the Kellogg Co. in business planning and development and at Merck Consumer Care (now Bayer), where she led go-to-market strategies for portfolio sales on Walmart.com, ensuring that brands were positioned for success at a time when many CPGs were still only exploring e-commerce.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Manjari Mehrotra

Senior Director, Performance Marketing
Albertsons

Mehrotra is passionate about en-suring that her team’s marketing efforts deliver value and impact across all of Albertsons’ banners and regions, through a highly analytical and data-driven approach. Her dedication to continuous improvement and optimization has grown partnerships with her external partners, bringing robust learning agendas and delivering strong results. As a result, the Albertsons business has continued to transform. Mehrotra has helped drive share gains within core target markets and younger consumer segments, while always identifying areas of opportunity to provide more value for shoppers.

Ann Paradise

Senior Marketing Manager
Merrell

Ann Paradise leads the U.S. customer marketing efforts at Merrell. Working with key accounts like Dick’s Sporting Goods, Zappos and DSW, she is a trusted partner focused on innovating and driving creative marketing solutions. The 2020 Merrell x Zappos Adaptive program, a first-of-its-kind effort for a brand in the outdoor industry, enabled people with disabilities — including amputees and shoppers with unevenly sized feet — to buy only one Merrell shoe. In 2021, Paradise launched the “Take a Hike” program with Dick’s Sporting Goods that established a new athletic hike category for the retailer. The program drove significant growth.

Katie Schiavone

Senior Director, Commercial Strategy
PepsiCo

Katie Schiavone leads commercial planning for the central division of PepsiCo Beverages North America, tasked with driving the execution of its annual operating plan and the brand plan development, while also acting as the joint business planning lead for key customers, overseeing the innovation agenda and leading the perfect store team. Schiavone spearheaded an effort with her retail and marketing partners to create an exclusive flavor for Mountain Dew. Their work resulted in helping to launch Mountain Dew Overdrive, which is part of a two-year exclusive partnership between the brand and Casey’s General Stores that is estimated to bring in more than $3.5 million in 2022 alone for the business, performing as the No. 2 20-ounce soda at Casey’s.

Mara Sirhal

Executive Vice President, Brand President
Bed, Bath & Beyond and Harmon Health & Beauty

Mara Sirhal most recently served as chief merchandising officer for Bed, Bath & Beyond and general manager for Harmon Beauty. In September 2022, she assumed the role of executive vice president, brand president, with full P&L ownership for both retail banners and responsible for merchandising, planning, stores, brand marketing and site merchandising verticals. She also leads end-to-end customer experience across all channels. Sirhal is bringing her experience in fragrance and beauty to the Harmon’s store chain. Her mission is to build a new destination for beauty, wellness and value, creating a store experience that is inclusive and dynamic, while making beauty and wellness available to everybody.