2025 Women of Excellence Profiles: Innovator
Erin Anderson
Senior Director, Field Omni-Activation and E-Commerce
Danone
Throughout her 13-year tenure at Danone, Erin Anderson has challenged conventional approaches to shopper marketing. Her leadership in developing and executing retail strategies for major CPG brands has redefined best practices for shopper engagement and brand activation.
Anderson recently championed the launch of a coffeehouse scale program across Danone's portfolio of creamers and coffee mix-ins, which reimagines the coffeehouse experience for consumers at home. Early results are surpassing key performance benchmarks, signaling significant potential for long-term growth and wider adoption across the organization.
Anderson's ability to secure buy-in from internal stakeholders and retail partners has been instrumental in ensuring rapid adoption and strong initial results.
Her leadership in building retailer-specific initiatives for partners such as Target, Walmart, Meijer and Safeway not only delivered immediate business results but also established templates for long-term, repeatable success. Her innovative work in integrating retail media networks into Danone’s campaign ecosystem has opened new avenues for brand storytelling and data-driven personalization, positioning the company for sustained growth in a rapidly changing marketplace.
She is responsible for programs that focus on evolving health-based need states of the shopper while driving brand equity and delivering sales with proven results and measurable impact. Her collaborative approach in working with cross-functional teams and retail partners has helped secure strategic partnerships and pilot programs now being scaled enterprise-wide.
Prior to Danone, she spent more than seven years at The Integer Group.
Jenny Baker
Digital Content Director, E-Commerce
Market Performance Group
Jenny Baker's visionary leadership in integrating human ingenuity with AI tools has redefined the digital shelf, proving that impactful content doesn't demand exorbitant costs. Her unique vantage point as both a seasoned marketer and an e-commerce expert allows her to craft a forward-thinking path for her team, ensuring Market Performance Group's (MPG) digital content strategies remain not just relevant, but revolutionary. She joined the company in September to head up its digital content efforts.
Baker has fundamentally transformed how MPG views product detail pages (PDPs) and Brand Stores, elevating them beyond mere conversion points or SEO fodder into powerful brand-building platforms. Her pioneering concept of "retail readiness" has become a cornerstone of its success, generating a new revenue stream for MPG while empowering CPG brands to achieve consistent digital shelf excellence.
This integrative approach, placing shopper data and A/B testing insights at the forefront of PDP content, has delivered remarkable results: an average 32% lift in PDP click-through rates and an 18% to 42% boost in conversions. This initiative, successfully rolled out across multiple clients, not only exemplifies her ability to think differently, but also how she brings it to life by fostering collaboration that drives impactful change for MPG and clients alike.
Baker is a thought leader and educator who brings others along with her, translating emerging digital trends into actionable strategies. Whether inspiring clients with her vision of the future or mentoring team members on new AI tools and approaches, she exemplifies what it means to innovate with impact.
Rachel Botia Goldfield
Senior Director, Omni-Commerce Strategy and Capabilities
The Campbell's Co.
Rachel Botia Goldfield's strategic foresight and determination to redefine existing business paradigms have been instrumental in propelling the company's success in the e-commerce landscape. She blends creativity with practical execution, resulting in significant organizational change and growth.
One of Goldfield's signature accomplishments is the complete overhaul of the Campbell's Snacks search strategy across all customer segments. The initiative not only challenged existing conventions but also introduced novel solutions that enhanced customer engagement and boosted sales. By driving incrementality for the business, she set a new standard for customer interaction and commercial success.
Goldfield has also played a pivotal role in bridging the gap between national and shopper media and marketing plans. Her advocacy for synergy within the organization has led to widespread adoption and acceptance of cohesive marketing strategies. This integration has ensured consistency and effectiveness across multiple channels, amplifying the brand's reach and impact.
Under her leadership, the Campbell's Snacks e-commerce business has experienced unprecedented double-digit growth within a year, a testament to Goldfield's ability to craft and implement strategies that not only yield immediate results but also possess the potential for sustainable, long-term growth. Her initiatives have solidified the e-commerce division as the company's top priority for future expansion, underscoring her strategic acumen and forward-thinking leadership.
Goldfield also initiated the Retail Media AI Assistant, a project that highlights her commitment to integrating cutting-edge technology into the business model, reshaping priorities and setting the groundwork for future advancements. Her efforts in spearheading the e-commerce roadmap have not only driven business priorities but also established a strong foundation for continued growth and innovation.
Julia Boyd
Media Manager
Sony Electronics
Julia Boyd oversees paid media strategy and an annual budget of $27 million across all channels for Sony's Personal Entertainment Business Unit including Google, streaming TV and Amazon. She has piloted betas for Amazon including Amazon Marketing Cloud audiences, interactive audio ads, Thursday Night Football, Spanish language, FreeVee and Prime Video, Performance+, and Brand Innovation Labs.
Under Boyd's leadership, media plans have scaled product launches with artists including Miguel, Olivia Rodrigo and Post Malone. For Miguel's earbud headphone launch, she spearheaded a full-funnel media plan through Amazon that segmented Gen Z and Millennial shoppers across music creation, music entertainment and headphone purchase intent. The campaign reached 53.5 million shoppers and generated $15 million in sales. It was recognized by Digiday as its inaugural retail media campaign of the year.
For the launch with Rodrigo, Boyd's strategy leveraged Amazon's first-party data to target headphone consumers and Rodrigo listeners. Sony was one of 10 brands to pilot Amazon’s Interactive Audio Ads offering. Amazon's Echo devices combined audio inventory with interactive display ads, allowing customers to add products directly to cart. The Spotify campaign strategy leveraged Spotify's "Audio Everywhere," which were audio ads played between songs during active sessions, a format that includes a clickable companion display unit in the cover art area to drive traffic to a specific URL destination.
The Amazon campaign was the top performer of the beta participants, reaching more than 1.2 million unique customers with an interaction rate 1.6 times above benchmark. For Sony, the Interactive Audio Ad strategy generated 74% of total add-to-carts across the full funnel campaign and thousands of branded searches to fuel Amazon search tactics. The audio campaign for Rodrigo was recognized by Digiday as the top audio campaign of the year, and the case study was published on Amazon's website.
Vana Ghazarian
Head of Global Marketing
Intel Corp.
Vana Ghazarian leads transformative projects that redefine the retail experience through the integration of artificial intelligence. Her most notable achievement to date is spearheading the Intel AI Experience at Future Retail stores in London, a groundbreaking initiative set to expand globally this year.
The project is a testament to her visionary leadership as well as her ability to translate complex AI concepts into tangible, everyday experiences that resonate with consumers. Under Ghazarian's guidance, the Intel AI Experience has evolved into an interactive hub that showcases the multifaceted benefits of AI in personal computing. By focusing on areas such as gaming, creativity and productivity, she has successfully demonstrated how AI can enhance and enrich these domains, turning abstract technological advancements into real-world impacts that consumers can see and feel.
Her work has not only transformed the retail space but has also set a new standard for how technology can be presented and experienced in a commercial setting. Beyond the Intel AI Experience, Ghazarian leads several other innovative projects at the point of sale, each designed to captivate and engage consumers in unique ways.
Her efforts ensure that Intel's cutting-edge AI technology is not only accessible but also compelling, providing hands-on and demo experiences that leave a lasting impression. Ghazarian's commitment to excellence extends to her support for the training of sellers, empowering them with the knowledge and skills necessary to effectively communicate the benefits of Intel's AI solutions to customers.
Ghazarian, who has spent more than 15 years at the company, assumed her current post in May.
Dana Machac
Director of Omnichannel Marketing and Digital
Republic National Distributing Co.
Dana Machac is the innovator behind REDI, a digital accelerator for alcohol suppliers backed by Republic National Distributing Co.'s e-commerce data. Having created the service from scratch, the team ensured that RNDC's knowledge of where items are in stock and available with Instacart, DoorDash, Uber Eats, etc., was incorporated, as well as RNDC's regulatory compliance knowledge for each location.
REDI is a targeted service delivering superior returns. Machac's team supports alcohol suppliers both in a digital way and in a local way (the niche for wholesaler marketing). RNDC recently merged its B2C e-commerce and marketing teams under Machac's leadership, more than doubling the size of her team and significantly increasing her operating budget.
Machac's responsibilities include providing compelling explanations for suppliers on why they should advertise on B2C platforms; digitally influencing beverage alcohol sales by tying the in-store to the online with media, marketing programs and localization; instructing clients on how to set up their own carts with Shopify; and how to drive advertising traffic from external sites.
In its first year, Machac and REDI launched 44 marketplace campaigns with positive results of 4 to 5 times return on ad spend on multiple brands. Machac has been able to leverage RNDC's existing relationships — leaning in to unified shopper experiences through retail media and programmatic programs with six different suppliers — with results such as 2.7 million impressions in a six-week program.
Machac's career in beverages includes time at PepsiCo, The Heineken Co. and, most recently, Ste. Michelle Wine Estates. In 2025, she was named a 40 Under 40 by the Beverage Dynamics Information Group.
Meera Patel
Senior Director Global Advanced Analytics, Omnichannel
Kellanova
Meera Patel has successfully guided Kellanova's Retail Display Optimizer from concept to rollout, ensuring its widespread adoption within the organization. Her efforts have empowered sales and strategy teams to make smarter, data-driven decisions, leading to better outcomes for both the company and its customers.
The Retail Display Optimizer is a groundbreaking tool that has transformed the way Kellanova's sales team operates by providing them with invaluable data-driven insights. These insights are localized and personalized for each retail store, ensuring that the sales team can offer the most relevant and effective recommendations.
The Retail Display Optimizer enables the sales team to sell displays to store managers, ensuring the right brand and flavor mix is presented. This level of precision and customization is made possible by leveraging advanced AI and machine learning algorithms. These technologies challenge traditional paradigms by offering insights that are specifically tailored to each store's unique context.
This innovative approach has not only improved the efficiency of the sales process but also significantly enhanced the overall customer experience. By providing clear examples and case studies of innovative thought, Patel has demonstrated the tool's effectiveness and potential for long-term growth.
Patel has been with the company for more than eight years. Prior, she spent time at Time Inc., Integrated Marketing Services, Acosta Sales & Marketing, Princeton Review, Savvy Marketing and Walmart.
Sneha Popley
Senior Product Manager
Koddi
Sneha Popley has been instrumental in delivering substantial business impact through innovation in retail media measurement. She introduced, launched and scaled Koddi's first incrementality feature across multiple clients, enabling advertisers to directly measure the true value of their ad spend. Her initiatives drove six-figure increases in incremental revenue in the first two quarters of launch.
Popley's work has delivered immediate and tangible success for Koddi's clients. A leading food delivery app experienced a 6 times increase in incremental return on ad spend and a 13% lift in incremental sales for top merchants within the first year of launch. A partnership with a delivery app to enhance its ads platform resulted in more than a 40% increase in incremental purchases per user through new measurement tools.
In addition to driving measurable revenue impact, Popley's leadership in incrementality innovation helped shift advertiser perception of retail media from "cost of doing business" to a proven driver of incremental revenue and sales lift. Her innovations in incrementality have directly enabled advertisers to unlock deeper insights into audience value, organic versus paid performance, and have supported advertisers in reallocating and expanding budgets based on true ROI.
Beyond measurement, she led a major relevance and AI initiative that dramatically improved ad performance across all platforms. Through the development and launch of a new Quality Score — a highly technical system aggregating signals of ad relevance, engagement and expected performance — she helped increase ad click-through rates up to 27% and ad revenue by up to 20% across participating platforms.
Jill Rourke
Director, Client Leadership
Mars United Commerce
Jill Rourke develops comprehensive shopper marketing strategies and retailer engagement for her client, Boehringer Ingelheim, and its Nexgard and Heartgard brands, leading the annual planning process, project execution and thought leadership.
Rourke doesn't shy away from organizational discomfort, she innovates through it, anticipating both real and perceived barriers and finding creative ways to disarm the push back and enable the push forward. Her impact isn't just in what she builds, but in who she empowers along the way.
She was one of the early architects of CPG success in retail media while at Amazon, helping major clients build their first e-commerce strategies. She demystified a new platform for hesitant brands, transforming nascent opportunities into repeatable best practices across content, assortment and shopper marketing.
Then at Kellogg, she helped build and scale an e-commerce marketing strategy across the entire, and previously siloed, North American breakfast and snack portfolio. She championed media innovation, including launching a movie-themed Amazon Fresh promotion that grew Eggo sales double digits, most of which were new-to-brand. She didn't just challenge the way Kellogg marketed online, she helped reshape how the company measured success, increasing ROI by introducing new metrics tied to omnichannel impact, loyalty and incrementality.
Later, at Wellness Pet Co., amid pandemic-fueled transformation, she expanded the company’s presence across platforms like Chewy and Amazon. She led the development of a digital strategy rooted in data and enabled by a more modern tech stack, driving the roadmap across CommerceIQ, Pacvue, Salsify, Yogi and others. She automated new item workflows, integrated content syndication processes, and was recognized with an internal 2021 Excellence Award for her cross-functional influence and performance.
Michelle Urwin
Chief Marketing Officer
Skai
Michelle Urwin has driven the launch and growth of several groundbreaking initiatives at Skai, each of which directly supports the advancement of commerce media, creating measurable impact for brands, agencies, retailers and the ecosystem at large.
Retail Media Thursdays is a weekly video series and podcast Urwin launched to serve a growing demand in the industry for credible, engaging and insightful thought leadership. She created a consistent platform where leaders from Walmart Connect, Sam's Club, Amazon Ads, Instacart, Criteo, The Mars Agency, Roundel and others could have real, unscripted conversations about everything from full-funnel strategy and measurement to AI and omnichannel planning.
Celeste AI is one of the most significant product launches in Skai's 20-year history. Designed as a first-of-its-kind generative AI agent for commerce media marketers, it helps Skai clients more quickly uncover insights, streamline campaign operations and improve cross-channel performance.
Urwin oversaw the branding, messaging and go-to-market strategy, as well as a high-impact global launch event. The campaign resulted in visibility in 163 publications, a total potential media audience of 68.6 million, 1,657 press release views, 172% above-benchmark social engagement for launch-day content, and 58% livestream viewer retention from start to finish.
ShopAble is still her most transformative initiative. In 2024, she reimagined it as the ShopAble Street, an interactive experience that combined education, brand storytelling and immersive installations. This year, ShopAble became the ShopAble Media Mall — a multi-dimensional platform that now spans a major flagship event, a global awards ceremony and international expansion.
