2025 Women of Excellence Profiles: Business Excellence

Amy Avellar

Senior Director, Brand Communications
SmartyPants Vitamins

Amy Avellar has played a pivotal role in driving both top-line growth and operational transformation at SmartyPants Vitamins. She was promoted to her current post in December 2024, and her contributions have redefined what success looks like within a competitive and evolving market landscape.

Avellar’s strategic leadership was instrumental in driving share and POS sales growth across the brand’s top five retail customers. 

At Target, she successfully navigated inventory challenges to propel SmartyPants into a leading position within the "kids multi" category, with digital efforts far surpassing growth goals. 

At Whole Foods Market, she led a turnaround from an anticipated decline to double-digit growth, reclaiming category leadership in every "multi gummy" segment. 

At Walmart, she accelerated both online and in-store performance, achieving rapid double-digit growth year-over-year, delivering outsized gains on key segments.

Avellar’s shopper marketing strategy helped generate hundreds of millions of impressions and delivered significant sales lift, with innovative in-store activations driving significant increases in redemption rates. Her work also accelerated new household acquisition at key retail partners, strengthening long-term brand penetration.

In an effort to secure full acceptance for all key "2025 innovation" items, a milestone once thought impossible, Avellar developed compelling sell-in narratives, data-backed creative and high-impact sizzle reels. Her efforts were successful, translating into expanded distribution and robust incremental revenue potential.

She began her tenure at the company in August 2020 in a shopper marketing role. Prior, she was with News America Marketing, IN Marketing, Advantage Unified Commerce and, most recently, C.A. Fortune.

Rachel Bennington

Regional Vice President, Retail Media Engineer
Inmar Intelligence 

In her most recent post as vice president of retailer partnerships at New Engen, Rachel Bennington drove a 710% year-over-year revenue increase in 2024 through major mass retail partnerships, accounting for more than one-third of the total revenue from its Creator Suite solution offering.

Her work also led to a 100% lift in advertiser count and secured New Engen’s place as one of just four finalists in a major mass retailer’s exclusive Creator Proof of Concept program.

Bennington launched the Digital Media Excellence Task Force to unite New Engen’s sales, media and strategy teams in building smarter, more integrated retail media campaigns. She led the full certification of more than 84 solutions team members at a leading retail media network, bolstering fluency and credibility across all retail media networks. She also improved internal communications frameworks to ensure its partnerships translated into client-ready strategies faster and more effectively.

Bennington led business development collaborations with platforms such as The Trade Desk. She secured a full sponsorship for a marquee client dinner that introduced more than 33 CPG marketers to New Engen’s advanced digital media capabilities. During The Trade Desk’s on-site visit, she organized hands-on demand-side platform training for more than 90 internal team members, followed by a similar training session with Target's Roundel, empowering the team to confidently bring Roundel solutions to market.

Bennington began a new role with Inmar in August. She has since rolled out an updated version of an existing solution that is quickly generating revenue. Additionally, she launched two new partnerships with Target and Casey's. She works across multiple teams in her new role to raise the bar, improve processes and enhance relationships at retail.

Louise Cotterill

Senior Director of Insight and Intelligence
Kellanova

Louise Cotterill led the development of a privacy-centric clean room solution at Kellanova that unlocked a new level of visibility into real shopper behavior, while upholding strong ethical standards in data governance.

Cotterill linked technology with clear business outcomes, starting with a focused goal: improve media effectiveness and drive smarter, more relevant consumer connections. Rather than layering on technology, she embedded clean room capabilities directly into the marketing and media planning process.

Her work has delivered a measurable impact. Cotterill led Special K campaigns that reported a 9% sales lift among value-conscious shoppers, 36% with premium audiences, and brand health scores three times the industry average. She also built a scalable model now used across markets and campaigns, with each iteration improving performance and return.

Cotterill has brought together marketing, sales, insights and data science to solve problems as one team at Kellanova, breaking down silos and driving faster, more aligned decision-making. To build lasting capabilities, she combines hands-on training with real campaign implementation, ensuring teams don’t just understand the theory but experience the results firsthand. This approach is raising the bar across the company and fostering a culture of testing, learning and scaling.

Cotterill also helps shape how the broader industry thinks about responsible innovation. She’s shown how advanced analytics can sharpen marketing performance without compromising consumer trust. She leads with purpose, clarity and a strong sense of collaboration. She challenges convention, builds systems that scale and helps people grow along the way. Her impact is not just commercial, it’s cultural.

Emma Dean

Chief Operations Officer
SMG

As SMG’s first hire, Emma Dean has played an instrumental role in growing the organization into the UK’s largest retail media operator, trading £1.9 million in media daily and evaluating £2.4 million weekly. Since inception, the business has traded more than £1.2 billion in media.

Under her direction, the company’s reach has expanded to 930 advertisers, including 95 of the top 100 global CPG brands. She spearheaded the development of core business functions, operations and people, and has launched and scaled major networks including Boots Media Group and LS Eleven (Asda). She also led SMG’s international expansion into North America and helped Capture, SMG’s agency, achieve more than 40% share of grocery retail media.

Dean drives innovation through initiatives such as the company’s proprietary Plan-Apps platform and led Retail Media Summit UK to 50% year-over-year growth. She advances diversity through inclusive policies and mentoring, and supports leadership on reduced hours. All of the company’s female C-suite members are working mothers.

Her focus on culture and capability has helped SMG achieve a 92% retention rate and earn a three-star “world-class” status by Best Companies in 2024. From launching its Career Pathways Project to being featured on the SheCanCode podcast, Dean is a leader in tech and marketing. Her blend of commercial acumen, people-first leadership and operational excellence makes her a transformative force driving SMG’s — and the industry’s — growth.

Lindsey Hogan

Senior Manager, E-Commerce Marketing
Nestle Purina 

Lindsey Hogan transformed Purina’s approach to Amazon marketing, driving increased innovation, engagement and sales in the role she assumed less than a year ago. She expanded Purina's full-funnel approach and partnered with Amazon Ads to build a new model based on Amazon’s first-party data, which ultimately helped inform the company’s investment decisions.

Hogan has been a key leader in piloting a more holistic strategy across Amazon channels such as search, display, audio, video and CTV, which includes more frequent campaign management and optimization and allocating resources in new ways.

She and her team launched pilots for two Purina brands this year. By optimizing the consumer journey and leveraging more data and tools, results for its Pro Plan brand showed an eight times increase on both the return on ad spend and sales on Amazon. For Fancy Feast, purchase rate rose more than 20% on Amazon. The team is now adding a third Purina brand to the pilot with potentially more on the horizon.

These new approaches serve as a model for other teams within Purina as they look to bring full-funnel strategies to their partnerships with other retail media networks. A key part of Hogan’s success is her strength in fostering collaboration and integration across previously siloed teams. She launched biweekly IAT (integrated agency team) meetings and joint workshops, uniting Purina’s agencies across search, display, and more. She also brings together sales, shopper and agency partners to align growth objectives and ensure that media contributes effectively to overall business goals.

Prior to her current role, Hogan was the digital marketing lead for the new business models division at Purina. She brings more than 20 years of experience in the development of brand and growth strategies, data and consumer-insight led marketing, and performance marketing integration. She also spent time at HBO and women’s apparel start-up Summersalt.

Megan Hoppenjans 

Executive Director, Strategy
VML

Megan Hoppenjans has been instrumental in leading commerce transformation for VML’s CPG clients, driving integrated marketing strategy that has resulted in double digit year-over-year growth for the agency. She's overseen award-winning omnichannel campaigns such as Cannes Lions Grand Prix Ziploc “Preserved Promos,” Effie-winning Glade Dupe Detector and Effie-shortlisted Raid Shoe Saver and STEM bugout activations. Her work has delivered sales improvements ranging from 5% to 16% for clients, unlocked new distribution opportunities and increased customer acquisition and market share.

Hoppenjans’ ability to leverage insights, develop innovative strategies and deliver measurable results has positioned her as a standout leader within VML. Her commitment to omnichannel growth has unlocked new opportunities for clients across digital shelf transformation and PIM strategy, representing incremental 15% to 20% growth for the agency. 

She is a key contributor to VML and WPP’s Open AI transformation roadmap for North America, having piloted and driven the adoption of AI-powered tools across VML’s North America strategists. And she also played a pivotal role in securing new business wins with major clients in 2025. 

Hoppenjans is always seeking out new solutions for marketers’ complex business challenges. In 2025, she championed the adoption of an AI-powered "Insight to Impact" marketing model for a large portfolio client that brought together brand and commerce teams under a single framework. This approach resulted in streamlined planning processes, improved speed to market, and overall increased marketer agility and efficiency — addressing one of the most pressing challenges faced by CMOs today: doing more with less. 

These contributions and more have enabled VML to remain at the forefront of innovation while uncovering and applying insights that propel brands forward.

Katie McGee

Team Leader, Walmart & Sam's Club
Beiersdorf

Katie McGee’s contributions in 2024 alone have advanced Beiersdorf’s business and strengthened its retail partnership with Walmart. She led the first-ever Innovation Summit with Walmart, hosting executives at the company’s R&D center in New Jersey. She reimagined the event beyond traditional presentations, creating a dynamic, cross-functional experience that accelerated several key initiatives and further deepened the company’s strategic alignment with the customer.

McGee submitted multiple display proposals last year, collaborating internally and leveraging the growing customer partnership. Her team was awarded five major off-shelf programs for July through October this year.

She has also led her team to grow market share by 30 basis points across Nivea/Eucerin/Aquaphor and hold flat despite seasonal challenges in suncare. She drove a 70% points-of-distribution gain in the company’s Aquaphor lip care brand and secured a 90% points-of-distribution increase in Nivea Men (including the launch of its flagship Age Defense line) through months-long negotiations, product additions and improved merchandising.

McGee also expanded hand and body lotion points of distribution by 3% (without innovation) and secured future commitments, including Eucerin face care (coming in 2026) and a rollback strategy for Coppertone. She also improved forecast accuracy teamwide, from 87% in the first half of the year to 104% in the second half.

McGee has been actively involved in the NextUp NWA (Northwest Arkansas) organization, as a champion for women in the workplace. In 2025, she was selected to be on the board for the NWA NextUp Pride event, where Beiersdorf will be the lead sponsor.

Neha Pokharna

Senior Financial Analyst
The Fresh Market

Neha Pokharna bridges strategy, data science and customer empathy to drive measurable commercial transformation at The Fresh Market in a position she’s held since 2020. 

Under her leadership, The Ultimate Loyalty Experience grew to 1.25 million members and has delivered more than $28 million in annual incremental revenue. The program’s AI-powered personalization engine tailors offers at the individual level, yielding email open rates more than 50% — nearly double the industry average. 

Pokharna’s work has become core to The Fresh Market’s enterprise strategy. Her models were embedded in the 2024 growth agenda and presented to executive leadership as a top-line revenue driver. When early results showed underperformance, she paused rollout, reengineering targeting logic, and ultimately boosting ROI by 30% above plan.

Pokharna is a sought-after mentor and thought leader. She is an active member of the Association of National Advertisers. Through ANA forums and internal workshops, she champions data literacy, ethical personalization, and inclusive analytics. 

Her achievements have earned national recognition, including a Silver Stevie for Women of the Year 2025 in Customer Service, a Silver Stevie for Marketer of the Year in 2025, Newsweek’s Best Loyalty Program and The Drum’s Best Data-Driven Marketing, both in 2024.

Prior, she spent time at Deloitte in auditing, Lucent Innovation, CenturyLink and, most recently, Schneider Electric.

Heather Redman

Senior Director of Digital Commerce
Post Consumer Brands

Since assuming her current post in August 2023, Heather Redman has led the digital commerce team to deliver double-digit growth across key online channels by integrating data analysis with channel strategies. She knows the numbers and business details that matter — making revenue-driving decisions informed by daily sales trends, margin shifts and SKU-level performance.

Redman collaborates with cross-functional leaders in sales, finance, supply chain and brand marketing, and builds cohesive, results-focused teams. Her data-driven rigor underpins every initiative — from program to campaign strategy — and she isn’t afraid to test new promotions or ad placements to quickly learn and adapt.

She regularly presents insights in weekly leadership forums, volunteers and mentors. She also supports her team by leading storefront audits, coordinating cross-department war rooms during key promotions, and facilitating team development sessions focused on analytics, storytelling and career growth.

Under Redman’s leadership, the company’s e-commerce revenue share has grown year-over-year, with measurable gains in category share on Amazon and Walmart, and clear improvements in advertising ROAS and conversion metrics. Her ability to align insights to strategy, consistently roll out innovative initiatives, and build high-performing teams exemplifies how bold, data-informed leadership delivers real, quantifiable impact.

Redman began her career in newspaper publishing before joining Carlson Marketing as a marketing coordinator and then media planner. She also spent time at General Mills, Mars and Target before joining Post in 2021 to head up its e-commerce media efforts.