Hall of Fame Profile: Brian Messerschmitt, Dollar Tree
Brian Messerschmitt sees his career and the work he does as a competition of sorts. He’s played sports his entire life and loves being part of a team and competing. His goal has always been to play hard and win at whatever he does.
Messerschmitt began his career in engineering, but it didn’t take long for him to realize that he wasn’t passionate about the work. He wasn’t close enough to the business, he says, “and for the first time in my life, it wasn’t clear to me whether we were winning or losing.”
What came next is what Messerschmitt now looks back on as the most significant challenge he’s faced in his career: transitioning from an engineering mindset to a marketing mindset, and being more focused on business, strategy, vision, customers and marketing frameworks.
“I knew I wanted to lead business and use marketing as a way to do it,” he says, “but it required me to shift the way I thought about my role and customers. I had to truly think through the who/what/how of marketing to craft effective plans capable of building brands and business.”
It was a new muscle that he had to develop over several years with on-the-job training, market research and strong mentors. “I still use a lot of the great engineering mindset,” he says, “since it pertains to data and trends, insights, strategies, and business analytics and understanding.”
Messerschmitt is one of three 2025 inductees into the Path to Purchase Institute Hall of Fame. Each year since 1994, the editors of P2PI have selected three industry leaders for induction.
- Hall of Fame Ceremony
Our 2025 inductees — Brian Messerschmitt, Ferrero's Sarah Nellson and The Campbell's Co.'s Stephen Chriss — will be honored during a special ceremony at P2PI LIVE & Expo, which takes place Nov. 11-13 at the Renaissance Convention Center Hotel in Schaumburg, Illinois. The celebration is at 5 p.m. CST on Tuesday, Nov. 11.
The Early Years
Messerschmitt grew up in a suburb of Cincinnati, the second of three kids born to blue-collar parents who earned their livelihood in the local steel factory and as a receptionist in an oral surgeon’s office. He attributes his hard work ethic to his parents.
“We were always taught to be scrappy, independent and hard working,” he says.
As a high school student, his summer jobs included work as an hourly machine operator at Champion Paper and a hotel server.
The first in his family to go to college, he followed the advice of a neighbor who was an engineer. “I was good at math and science in high school, and that naturally led to an engineering curriculum,” he says. “At that time, it was 100% job placement, a pretty high starting salary, and everything seemed to line up for me.”
He enrolled at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and held engineering internships with several companies, including Champion, Honeywell and Black Clawson while in school. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in paper science and engineering.
Career Development
Messerschmitt’s internship the summer before his final year at Miami translated into his first job out of college: doing sales at Honeywell.
But, looking back, he says that he accepted the position simply because Procter & Gamble’s interview process took too long. Just a few weeks later, P&G contacted him with an opportunity, but Messerschmitt stayed at Honeywell for a year before making the move to the consumer goods giant right in his backyard.
He spent the next 22 years as a member of various teams at P&G, first in engineering working on Charmin and Puffs, then deciding to shift his focus to marketing and business growth.
That led to him pursuing an MBA at Indiana University while starting his journey down the marketing path — MBAs were required for all P&G marketers at the time, he notes.
Messerschmitt went on to hold leadership positions on some of P&G’s biggest brands, including Tide, Crest, Charmin, Braun, Gillette and Pantene, all while based in Cincinnati.
“I love variety, so the ability to bounce around, learn new businesses and lead new businesses was all very exciting for me,” he says.
That was where he built his marketing foundation, working on household brands while learning the ins and outs of all the top retailers in the game. “Naturally you get a lot of exposure to retail and you learn how to win in retail,” he says.
More than a decade into his tenure, Messerschmitt was charged with leading P&G's marketing at Kroger, working closely with the grocery retailer’s marketing department and merchandisers and “getting deep into the world of retail,” he says.
He led multi-category scale events and grew the platform into more than $400 million in annual sales with three consecutive record sales years. “These total store events at Kroger became the biggest drivers of the P&G business the weeks that we ran these events,” he says.
In early 2013, he took a position as a senior brand manager working on Braun, a role he saw as a personal challenge because it didn’t have the same resources as some of the bigger brands within the P&G portfolio.
“We got very scrappy as a lead team on that business and basically completely reinvented the brand in North America,” he says.
During that time, Braun became the fastest growing brand in North America and delivered three consecutive years of record growth.
From there Messerschmitt moved over to P&G’s Walmart team — and his family to Fayetteville, Arkansas. He began leading both the e-commerce sales and omnichannel marketing teams across the entire P&G portfolio in what he says was a very fast-paced, high-growth opportunity.
“I was the first one to lead that, and the first one to help partner with Walmart to figure out the strategy, just as they were getting in the game,” he says.
He eventually handled all marketing for P&G, calling on Walmart as a customer.
“Only the best of the best go to that team, so it was an honor to be on it,” he says, adding that the $9 billion business that he and his team were running made up the company’s largest customer team.
He was also heavily immersed with Walmart Connect during this time, calling on marketers, retail media teams and merchants.
“I saw they were gearing up to go after Amazon within the world of retail media, and that really piqued my interest,” he says, knowing that much like P&G, when they do something big, everyone else will follow.
It was then, in 2019, that Messerschmitt made his next move, this time to Albertsons Cos. because he knew he wanted to be a part of the explosion of retail media he saw on the horizon.
He and his family moved to Boise, Idaho, where he led retail media and shopper marketing for the retailer. He also assumed responsibility for the design, implementation and launch of Albertsons Media Collective, a “monstrous task” at the time, he says, including hiring nearly 70 people and painting the vision of growing the business exponentially in the coming years.
Making His Mark at Dollar Tree
Messerschmitt joined Dollar Tree as vice president of customer experience marketing in mid-2023. His sights were set on becoming a leader and influencer within the rapidly growing world of retail media — and elevating his career to the CMO level — and this was where he could do that in a fast-paced setting.
He was initially leading marketing for both the Dollar Tree and Family Dollar banners, with more than $30 billion in sales, more than 15,000 combined stores and a team of 65 marketers. They were focused on everything from brand marketing and e-commerce to retail media and loyalty.
He still leads all efforts for the Dollar Tree banner following the split from Family Dollar that was finalized in early July of this year.
From day one, Messerschmitt set out to build great merchandising and cross-functional partnerships, while advancing the importance of marketing for the company and building it into a strategic growth priority.
He oversaw the launch of its new Customer 360 precision targeting and measurement capability for digital marketing that allows Dollar Tree to reach 190 million customers.
“This is a state-of-the-art customer database that we’ve built in partnership with Epsilon,” he says. "It’s the brains of our marketing program.”
Utilizing both first-party and third-party data, this tool enables Messerschmitt and his team to digitally target both Dollar Tree customers as well as competitive customers that live near its stores.
He says current indications are that the retailer is on track to exceed its annual sales goal with average iROAS of more than 7-to-1. Based on early success, the team is planning to scale investment in 2026.
Messerschmitt is also proud of the e-commerce growth he led across both banners, which fueled Instacart acceleration and the very recent launch of Uber Eats for customers at Dollar Tree.
“We have greatly accelerated our growth through e-commerce,” he says.
Part of the strategy at the moment is to use same-day delivery partners, and Messerschmitt says while there has been tremendous growth on that business already, there is more to come.
Prior to the Dollar Tree/Family Dollar split, Messerschmitt led the revamping and accelerating of retail media growth for Family Dollars’ Chesapeake Media Group, doubling that business in 18 months.
He also launched several new Dollar Tree and Family Dollar app features to greatly enhance the customer experience, and revised brand positioning for both banners to reposition the brands to better resonate with its customers.
Messerschmitt was also part of the leadership team that led the sell-in and separation of the Dollar Tree and Family Dollar banners, which included splitting the teams apart.
Now focused solely on Dollar Tree’s marketing efforts, he says he’s continuing to shape marketing’s role inside the walls of the discount retailer.
“We have a brand now in Dollar Tree that has been around for nearly 40 years. It has grown into a $19 billion business with 9,000 stores and is one of the greatest success stories in retail,” he says.
Messerschmitt is leveraging the power of marketing in a much more serious way to not only build the brand and reposition the brand narrative, but also to drive more traffic and frequency of shopping at its stores. “It’s been a very successful business,” he says, “but I’m trying to elevate marketing to become more of a strategic growth partner, and we’re having tremendous success doing that.”
He is also building full-funnel marketing plans to precisely target customers with a relevant message. He hopes to increase conversion by leveraging the new Dollar Tree expanded assortment to drive value, convenience, discovery and its tagline “thrill-of-the-hunt” for its customers.
He collaborates with the retailer’s merchandising partners and builds plans to amplify its “big bets” to drive annual sales growth.
Looking Ahead
Messerschmitt is still in the process of rebuilding his Dollar Tree marketing team and capabilities. His goal, unsurprisingly, is to create a new best-in-breed team.
He’ll lead this team to effectively scale Customer 360 and social influencers to help build a more modern and culturally relevant brand.
He also hopes to continue to accelerate e-commerce sales and build the right data and technology infrastructure to modernize marketing and enhance the retailer’s ability to drive incremental sales and loyalty.
Messerschmitt encourages the next generation of leaders to master the fundamentals, embrace technology and become fluent in digital marketing, data and AI.
“The marketing fundamentals don’t change, but the way you reach and deliver your message will continue to rapidly change,” he says. “These are the tools of the future — learn them quickly.”
Be a visionary and think big, he adds. Master communication and influence across all levels. “If you have great ideas and can clearly articulate and influence, you will be unstoppable.”
BRIAN MESSERSCHMITT
TITLE: Chief Marketing Officer
COMPANY: Dollar Tree Stores
TEAM MEMBERS: Dan Lakhman, director, brand marketing; John Sezemsky, director, creative services; Su Yu, director, e-commerce; Bill Virtue, director, retail media; Dustin Elliott, manager, customer insights and data analytics.
CAREER PATH:
Dollar Tree Stores, Chief Marketing Officer (2024-present); Vice President of Customer Experience Marketing (2023-2024)
Albertsons Cos., Vice President of Client Sales/Marketing and Account Management, Albertsons Media Collective (2019-2023)
Procter & Gamble, Walmart Omni-Channel Marketing Senior Brand Director and Oral Care Marketing Leader (2018-2019); Walmart Omni-Channel E-Commerce Sales and Marketing Senior Brand Director (2016-2018); North America Braun Delivery Senior Brand Manager (2013-2016); Kroger Customer Team Senior Shopper Marketing Manager and Scale Event Sales Leader (2010-2013); Global New Business Development Tide Design Brand Manager (2008-2010); Global Sports Marketing and Gillette Point of Market Entry Senior Assistant Brand Manager (2006-2008); North America Pantene Expressions Delivery Senior Assistant Brand Manager (2005-2006); North America Crest Whitening and Rinse Assistant Brand Manager (2003-2005); North America Puffs and Charmin Lead Mechanical and Controls Engineer (1998-2003)
Honeywell, Sales Leader, Midwest U.S. Region (1996-1998)
INDUSTRY ACTIVITIES: Walton College of Business Retail Advisory Board, University of Arkansas; Strategic Fundraising Partnership with the Freestore Foodbank, Kroger and the Cincinnati Reds; Volunteer Youth Football and Basketball Coach, Boys and Girls Clubs of America; Holiday Meal Volunteer Cook/Server, Ronald McDonald House Charities.
EDUCATION: Miami University, Bachelor’s, Paper Science and Engineering; Indiana University, Master’s, Business Administration.
