Hall of Fame Profile: Sarah Nellson, Ferrero
Sarah Nellson has a builder’s mindset. Crafting teams and processes is what she does best. It’s what motivates her every day.
She has seen how strong teams and new processes can add real value to any business, and she thrives on the challenge of making that happen.
“I love bringing the right people together, aligning our goals with retailer, channel and shopper strategies, and uncovering big opportunities for growth,” she says.
Day to day, that means facilitating conversations between cross-functional partners to ensure everyone is aligned, collaborative and moving quickly toward shared objectives. This applies to both trade and shopper marketing, she notes, since both require agility and partnership between the company’s brands and retailer partners.
Nellson built both a trade marketing team (they called it sales strategy) and a shopper marketing team while in her most recent post at Sanofi/Opella. She relished the idea of tackling a similar challenge when she joined Ferrero less than two years ago.
As trade marketing director for Ferrero mainstream chocolate and, more recently, Kinder brands, Nellson says it’s an exciting time to be in this space at Ferrero. “The U.S. is at the forefront of growth plans for the global business over the next 10 years,” she says.
Growth will come through support of its current core businesses, category-leading innovation, and possibly more sweet packaged foods, as evidenced by the recent acquisitions of Power Crunch and Wells Ice Cream.
Nellson 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 — Sarah Nellson, The Campbell's Co.'s Stephen Chriss and Dollar Tree's Brian Messerschmitt — 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
Nellson was born in New Jersey and then moved to Rhode Island with her family as a young girl. Her first real job was at a local TJ Maxx store, where she learned about customer service and stock-room management — and the importance of “facing” the front displays at the beginning of her shifts.
She went on to Bucknell University to study English and "Classics." Passionate about language, reading and writing, she says she was “endlessly curious” about how the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations lived.
A study abroad opportunity took her to Rome. Nellson recalls that time as one of the best experiences of her life. She says it’s fortuitous to again be surrounded by people and the culture of Italy in her current role. “My experiences in Rome come in handy working at Ferrero,” she says. “None of my other career moves have taken advantage of that as much.”
During her college years, Nellson also worked part-time in the campus coffee shop and was a camp counselor one summer on Lake George, New York.
“It was idyllic in almost every way, and taught me to love an adventure and how to think on my feet,” she says, noting that those first work experiences have had ripples throughout her career.
“Retail plus customer focus plus coaching/leading equals my career in a nutshell.”
Career Development
Nellson’s first professional stop was at General Mills in Philadelphia, learning retail sales, trade marketing, category management and account management over the course of four years.
Armed with the foundation of what it takes to bring a brand in front of a consumer with a retailer, she then made her first move, this time to Pittsburgh for personal reasons.
It was there in 2001 that Nellson joined Kraft Heinz (the H.J. Heinz Co. at the time) in a category development role. She went on to hold various positions across trade marketing and field sales during her 13-year tenure, ultimately assuming the role of business development manager in San Francisco.
Nellson worked with top customer teams including Kroger and Safeway and gained brokered regional experience, with trade marketing efforts focused on frozen meals, condiments and what she calls the “special markets” side of things that covered all the company’s categories and brands.
Finding herself at the intersection of two large corporate shifts — when 3G Capital bought Heinz and Albertsons bought Safeway — Nellson started looking for new opportunities. She ultimately landed at Mondelez International in shopper marketing on the West Coast, with a key focus on Safeway and Albertsons as they were going through their integration.
Her next position, leading trade optimization on the revenue management team, brought Nellson and her family back to New Jersey near her childhood home. She was charged with helping the Mondelez sales teams build a better business plan and work on their efficiencies.
“That idea of building has been a part of me for a very long time,” she notes.
In 2019, Nellson made another jump, this time to Sanofi Consumer Healthcare. The company was moving its headquarters from Chattanooga, Tennessee, (where it was known as Chattem Pharmaceuticals) up to Northern New Jersey.
A restructuring of the entire business based on the business environment in OTC pharmaceuticals at the time gave her the chance to help rebuild teams (including finance, brand, sales, etc.) from the bottom up, as the director of sales strategy.
Nellson also began building the team for the New Jersey office on the internal sales side. “I set the processes and built the framework,” she says, and then shifted to build the shopper marketing function for the company in close collaboration with The Mars Agency (now Mars United Commerce), right as the world shut down for COVID-19.
“Our agency partners were critical,” she says. “It was one of the best build moments I can remember.”
The group started from scratch with no budget and no team, but it successfully built out the business process while educating others internally about shopper marketing and insights.
“It evolved pretty quickly into a space where … brands were starting to carve some space for us because we were making a difference in customer conversations and the kind of custom activation they could see in market,” she says, adding that she helped launch the first-ever shopper marketing programs for Icy Hot behind the brand’s "Rise from Pain" campaign in 2021 with Shaquille O’Neal.
Two Heinz vice presidents, Bill Simon and John Heuer, were early mentors to Nellson. “They saw things in me that I had no idea were there,” she says, “and encouraged me for my full 13 years at Heinz.”
Her first leaders in shopper marketing will always stand out as well — Steve McGowan and Kim Yansen at Mondelez. “They both took a chance on me,” she says. Anne Martin and Abby Ashe were agency partners at the time, and Nellson says she’s grateful that these people spent time coaching her so she could make the transition from a salesperson into a shopper marketer.
Nellson also points to Amy Uphues, previously of The Mars Agency, who she says, “was my ‘ride or die’ for so much of the build out of our shopper marketing function at Sanofi.” And to Hailey Venters, who came in shortly after. “I credit so much of our early success from partnering with her.”
Making Her Mark at Ferrero
In late 2023, Sanofi was undergoing a reorganization and Nellson’s position was rescoped. A few months later, she joined the team at Ferrero.
Nellson says her most important work has been building the trade marketing team. When she arrived, the team had been through multiple transitions, leaving one person running a four-person team.
“Recruiting a team while onboarding and embedding a mindset of ‘Be the Team Everyone Wants to Work With’ has been incredibly rewarding,” she says.
Beyond the team-building elements, Nellson was part of the team that launched Butterfinger Salted Caramel in the spring of 2025 as a limited-time offer.
“This launch surpassed expectations for us, for our consumers and our retailers,” Nellson says.
The brand had a significant presence in the convenience channel and at Walmart, and she says one of the most exciting and successful executions included the company’s partnership at Casey’s, where the team also created a foodservice integration. “This true cross-functional and innovation-led partnership with Casey’s brought the flavor to life and delivered outstanding results,” she says.
Nellson is proud of her team’s work on the Kinder Bueno March Madness program, which featured the launch of a brand campaign to grow critical household penetration during this key social moment. “We developed an impactful 360[-degree] campaign to further fuel the brand awareness and drive household penetration growth,” she says, “delivering to a broader audience during March Madness.”
The program grew household penetration by +0.4 points, and the core item increased 26% in volume. Reports showed 510 million earned media impressions, which was 111% of the team’s goal. Additionally, the company saw more than 22 million owned social, Instagram and TikTok views, and nearly 70 million influencer impressions, both organic and paid.
Looking Ahead
In the next five years, Nellson predicts that CPG and retail will be even more data-driven, personalized and seamlessly omnichannel.
“Sustainability and the connected shopping experience will grow as major trip and purchase-decision drivers,” she says. “The winners will be the brands and retailers that stay agile, put the shopper at the center, and practice iterative innovation.”
She urges those who are just breaking in to learn the whole ecosystem. “Understand not just your brand or category, but also the retailer’s strategy, the shopper’s mindset and how the supply chain works,” she says. “Then stay curious because things change quickly.”
Second, build strong cross-functional relationships early. “CPG success is a team sport, and your ability to connect to other functions will set you apart,” she adds.
And, finally, stay positive and proactive. Says Nellson: “This is a fast-moving business, and people notice those who bring energy and solutions to the table. Be the person people want to work with.”
SARAH NELLSON
Title: Trade Marketing Director, Ferrero Mainstream Chocolate & Kinder Brands
Company: Ferrero
Team members: Nick Palmer, senior trade marketing manager, Ferrero Mainstream Chocolate; Alex Shankland, senior trade marketing manager, Kinder; Maria Ciranni, shopper marketing manager; Mark Kochan, trade marketing manager, Kinder; Cecilia Iverson, trade marketing manager, Ferrero Mainstream Chocolate; Kelly Ryfa, trade marketing manager, Mainstream Chocolate Seasonal.
Career path:
- Ferrero, Trade Marketing Director, Ferrero Mainstream Chocolate & Kinder Brands (2024-present); Trade Marketing Director, Ferrero Mainstream Chocolate (2023-2024); Sanofi, Director of Shopper Marketing (2020-2023); Director of Sales Strategy (2019-2020)
- Mondelez International, Senior Manager, Revenue Management & Trade Optimization (2016-2019); Associate Director of Shopper Marketing, West Area (2014-2016)
- H.J. Heinz, Business Development Manager (2012-2014); Category Development Manager (Trade Marketing) (2007-2012); Regional Sales Manager - Great Lakes (2006-2007); Customer Sales Manager - Kroger Divisions (2004-2006); Associate Category Development Manager (2001-2004)
- General Mills, Various Sales, Insights and Trade Marketing roles (1997-2001)
Industry activities: Speaker, Brand Innovators session; speaker, P2PI; member of NextUp, former board member and former co-chair for the region. Nellson is also a mentor and coach to several colleagues in CPG within and beyond Ferrero. “This may be my biggest ‘passion project’ area as I go forward in my career as a way to encourage people and grow the business with positive influence and ripples across the industry.”
Education: Bucknell University, Bachelor’s, English; Cornell University, Digital Marketing Certificate.
