Yael Cossett

EVP & Chief Digital Officer Kroger

As Executive Vice President and Chief Digital Officer of The Kroger Co., Yael is responsible for leading Kroger’s digital strategy, focused on building Kroger’s presence in the marketplace in digital channels, personalization and e-commerce. He is also responsible for Kroger’s alternative profit businesses, including Kroger’s data analytics subsidiary, 84.51˚ LLC and Kroger Personal Finance.

Mr. Cosset was elected Executive Vice President and Chief Digital Officer in March 2025 and is responsible for leading Kroger’s digital strategy, focused on building Kroger’s presence in the marketplace in digital channels, personalization and e-commerce. He is also responsible for Kroger’s alternative profit businesses, including Kroger’s data analytics subsidiary, 84.51˚ LLC, and Kroger Personal Finance. From May 2019 to March 2025, Mr. Cosset served as Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer. Prior to that, he served as Group Vice President and Chief Digital Officer, and also as Chief Commercial Officer and Chief Information Officer of 84.51° LLC. Prior to joining Kroger, Mr. Cosset served in several leadership roles at dunnhumby USA, LLC, including Executive Vice President of Consumer Markets and Global Chief Information Officer.

Loretta Franks

SVP, Global Chief Data & Analytics Officer Mars Snacking

Loretta Franks is Global Vice President, Chief Data & Analytics Officer, at MARS (formerly Kellanova / Kellogg Company).
She is passionate about unlocking the full value of data, partnering with functional leaders to develop bold and creative data strategies, enabling agile execution with leading capabilities and driving accelerated qualitative and quantitative value creation.
Loretta joined Kellogg Company in 2007. She is an authentic executive leader with a successful career working across a number of functions and regions at the $13bn global consumer goods company.
Leading large diverse high performing teams across IT, Finance and GBS functions, she and her teams have delivered multiple large scale global programs transforming operating and sourcing models, organizational designs, cloud migrations and large-scale change programs to drive maximum return on investments.
She focuses on harnessing the power of data, AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics whilst also driving change management and championing data and AI literacy across the enterprise.
An advocate for women in STEM, Loretta is a dedicated mentor, committed to developing talent, and fostering a positive culture. She is an active member of the Shoptalk Europe Advisory Board and has received several accolades in the Data space, featuring in CDO’s 40 Under 40 Data Leaders and DataIQ’s top 100.
She is a graduate of Economics from Newcastle University and is based, with her family, in Manchester, England.

Benoit Vatere

Chief Media Officer Liquid Death

Benoit Vatere is the chief media officer of Liquid Death, one of the fastest growing non-alcoholic beverage brands. Liquid Death uses comedy and entertainment to make health and sustainability 50 times more fun. It takes low-calorie beverages and packages them into infinitely recyclable cans that compete with the fun marketing of unhealthy brands across beer and junk food. Its product lines include mountain water, soda-flavored sparkling water, iced tea, and energy. A portion of Liquid Death’s proceeds helps kill plastic pollution.
Prior to Liquid Death, Benoit founded Mammoth Media, a digital-to-retail technology company where he built and executed strategic digital media campaigns with focus on incrementality for leading CPG brands such as Pepsi, Lemon Perfect, 7 Eleven, and Siete. Before Mammoth Media, Benoit served as the CEO of mobile gaming monetization platform Playhaven and co-founded conversion optimization company magnify360.
Benoit holds a master's degree in engineering and a marketing degree from Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Sciences Agronomiques de Bordeaux

Cristina Marinucci

VP, Global Growth & Omni Commercial Insights Mondelēz International

Cristina Marinucci is a visionary leader in Global Insights & Analytics at Mondelēz International, where she currently serves as the Global Head of Shopper Excellence. Here she spearheads initiatives that transform shopper behavior and insights into actionable, unified omni strategies, driving significant revenue growth. Her work is central to positioning Mondelēz as a world-class Shopper organization, with a focus on elevating Shopper Insights within the Commercial organization.

In this role, Cristina leads the development of Global Category Growth Drivers, integrating market-level 6P activation inspiration, pioneering proprietary Pricing & Promotion tools that encompass the omni shopper journey as well as advancing best-in-class Shopper & Digital capabilities across the organization.

Prior to this role, Cristina led eCommerce Insights and Analytics for Johnson & Johnson North America, where she oversaw all aspects of NA eCommerce Analytics, including pure play, DTC, and omnichannel strategies.

Cristina has a proven track record in thought leadership, pioneering new capabilities, and driving organizational transformations in the shopper and digital domains. Her experience spans across some of the largest FMCG companies, including PepsiCo, Pernod Ricard, Reckitt Benckiser, M&M Mars, GlaxoSmithKline and Johnson & Johnson.

Cristina is recognized as an innovative and performance-driven commercial leader, with a strong ability to challenge paradigms and act as a catalyst for change. Her versatile expertise across Sales, Marketing, and Analytics allows her to forge meaningful connections between retailers, brands, and consumers, while creating holistic full-funnel strategies that drive superior performance.

As a frequent speaker at industry events such as CMA, GroceryShop, Shoptalk, and GDS, Cristina shares her insights on the future of shopper behavior and category growth. She holds a B.S. in Marketing and International Business from Manhattan College and an MBA from NYU Stern.

Leigh O'Donnell

Head of Shopper & Category Insights Kantar

Leigh O’Donnell leads the Shopper and Category Insights practice for Kantar North America. Leigh is a pioneer in shopper and consumer research, creating rich data- and story-driven solutions to guide action for clients. At Kantar, Leigh provides research and thought leadership to multinational brands, retailer, and agency clients, including Kantar’s long-running shopping attitudes tracker, ShopperScape®. Leigh is focused on driving insights and consulting across many of the critical questions in commerce today: evolution of shopping behavior, category disruption at retail, and the massive impact GLP-1 usage has on brands and retailers.
Prior to Kantar, Leigh held insights and analytics leadership roles at top consumer brands, including Mars Petcare, Mars Wrigley, Kirkland’s Home and Blue Cross Blue Shield. Leigh has studied at both Lawrence University and University of Chicago. She and her family live in Nashville.

Deborah Weinswig

Founder & CEO Coresight Research

Deborah Weinswig, CEO and Founder of Coresight Research Inc., leads the Coresight Research team to provide actionable insights and solutions for retailers and brands that accelerate innovation and growth in the fast-changing retail and technology landscape.
Deborah has been a trusted thought leader at the crossroads of technology, finance, and retail for nearly two decades. As a leading analyst and strategist, Deborah also has deep expertise in AI, Metaverse, China, livestreaming, retail media, supply chain, commercial real estate, and data monetization. In 2023, Deborah conceptualized and launched the first AI Council for the retail industry. This invitation-only organization has proven invaluable in helping brands, retailers, and technology companies navigate business in the artificial intelligence age. A member of the prestigious LinkedIn Top Voices program, Deborah is recognized as one of the top retail influencers in the world and has received multiple awards and honors for her industry leadership and impact. Deborah is passionate about fostering conversation and collaboration among the retail and technology community and supporting social and environmental causes through her research and advocacy.
Deborah has been invited to share her insights and Coresight Research data at over 200 events across the world including the Consumer Electronics Show, ShopTalk, World Retail Congress, NRF, ICSC, Money 20/20, Retail Innovation Conference & Expo, Future Stores Summit, NACDS, Total Retail Tech, Groceryshop, Women in Retail, NACS and more.  Across the globe, media outlets frequently request Deborah as a guest to provide a pulse on current industry trends and retail industry newsmakers. She has been featured on CNBC, Bloomberg, in Barron’s, The Street, NASDAQ, Fast Company, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, CNN, Marketwatch, Yahoo Finance, and more. 
Before establishing Coresight in 2014, Deborah was the Managing Director of Fung Global Retail and Technology, the Group's first internal think tank and research department. Before that, she was the Managing Director of Cit1 Research's Global Staples: Consumer Discretionary team.  
Deborah serves on the advisory board of the World Retail Congress, as well as several accelerators, and on the board of directors for Primaris Canada, GUESS?, Inc., Xcel Brands, Inc., KIABI, American Apparel & Footwear Association, YPO, Goodwill Industries New York/New Jersey, and Street Soccer USA. Additionally, she is a Board Member and Co-Founder of RetailersUnited, a 501(c)(3) established to aid small brands and retailers in pandemic recovery.
Deborah is a Certified Public Accountant and holds an MBA from the University of Chicago. 

Deepak Jose

VP & Head of Data & Decision Intelligence Niagara Bottling

Deepak Jose is a purpose-led executive leader in digital transformation, data, analytics and AI with a proven track record of driving profitable growth leading a diverse, global end to end analytics team. He is currently the VP and Head of Data & Decision Intelligence at Niagara. Deepak is also a co-founder and executive director and board member of FuturED Ai, a non-profit focusing on Ai Education. He is an in-demand speaker, and analytics thought leader in the Data, Analytics and AI focusing on CPG, Retail and Manufacturing Industry. He is a member of the Forbes Tech Council, AWS Retail & CPG Executive Advisory Forum, Industry standards associations, Editorial Board for CDO magazine, and Advisor for startups and AI/ Analytics service companies.

Deepak has experience across all major global markets in multiple categories such as beverage, confectionary, gum, food, and Health & Wellness. Before Niagara, Deepak was part of global brands like Coca-Cola, Mars and ABB in strategic roles driving business growth. At Mars, as the global Head of One Demand Data and Analytics Solutions, he started the Mars AI lab driving multiple proprietary patented solutions. Deepak has an MBA from George Washington University and a Mechanical engineer from NIT Calicut, India. He completed an executive education program from Oxford University Said School of Business in Economics of Mutuality.

Deepak was awarded the Consumer Good Visionaries by CGT and RIS news, Data IQ 100 2023, 24 &25 – the 100 most influential person in Data and AI, Top 100 leaders in Data by CDO Magazine, Top 100 Innovators in Data & Analytics in by Corinium Intelligence, AI 100 - Top 100 Influencers in AI in the US by AIM Media House, Direct 60 Award for Brand Leaders at the Forefront of the Direct-to-Consumer by The Lead and. Deepak’s team is recognized by Data IQ as Best Place to work in Data and AI in 24’. He is a Distinguished Toastmaster, and he is from Kerala, India

Flavia Takey

Supermarket Head Mercado Libre

Flavia Takey is Mercado Libre's Head of Supermarket for Latam. She has been workinng at Mercado Libre since 2021. Flavia, in partnership with Meli's Marketplace, Product/IT and Operations, has been leading the turnaround of the Supermarket business to revamp its value proposition, regain profitability and grow sustainably. Prior to Meli, Flavia has worked for 15 years at Boston Consulting Group in Brazil, where she was leader of the Retail practice, with focus on Grocery and CPG. MercadoLibre hosts the largest online commerce and payments ecosystem in Latin America, enabling e-commerce and digital and mobile payments on behalf of its customers by delivering a suite of technology solutions across the complete value chain of commerce. It is based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and present in 18 countries across Latam, including: Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela and Peru.

Gregor Murray

Chief 'So What' Officer Digital Commerce Global

Gregor Murray is Co-founder and Chief “So What” Officer at Digital Commerce Global, where he helps the world’s leading CPG manufacturers turn digital commerce ambition into measurable growth.
Gregor has spent his entire career in CPG, working across manufacturers, retailers, and agencies, giving him a rare, end-to-end view of how digital commerce actually works in practice. For more than half of that time, he has specialised in digital commerce, leading customer accounts, building strategies, and now advising global organisations on how to develop the capabilities required to scale profitable, sustainable growth.
At DCG, Gregor works with some of the industry’s largest manufacturers to benchmark their performance against peers, identify capability gaps, and prioritise the actions that drive real commercial impact. His work focuses on cutting through noise, helping leadership teams move from opinion to evidence, and from activity to outcomes.
Known for his direct, practical style, Gregor is a regular speaker at industry events, where he challenges conventional thinking and brings clarity to the biggest questions in digital commerce today.

Jordan Berke

Founder & CEO Tomorrow

Jordan Berke, Founder and CEO of TOMORROW, is one the world’s pre-eminent digital retail advisors. Renowned for his transformative omnichannel leadership, Jordan spearheaded Sam's Club and Walmart’s e-commerce endeavors in China, pioneering Walmart’s innovative alliances with JD and Tencent. His vision led Walmart's eCommerce business in China to reach the highest level of growth and penetration among Walmart's 20+ countries.
Recognized with Walmart’s esteemed Sam Walton Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2018, Jordan also served as Chairman of the company’s Global Omnichannel Forum, shaping Walmart’s digital priorities worldwide.
At TOMORROW, Jordan and his team advise global retailers on accelerating digital growth and profitability. His insights are sought after by industry leaders and regularly featured in the Wall Street Journal and on CNBC, NPR, and Bloomberg

Lauren Livak Gilbert

Executive Director The Digital Shelf Institute

Lauren Livak Gilbert is Executive Director of the Digital Shelf Institute (DSI) and co-host of the Unpacking the Digital Shelf podcast. With over 10+ years of experience in digital commerce and design, Lauren is a sought-after commerce strategist for hundreds of global omnichannel brands. While at Johnson & Johnson, Lauren launched a new, successful digital strategy for its Consumer North America business. At Salsify she worked with more than 100 global brands to develop a comprehensive commerce strategy, including staffing, technology investments, and performance-based processes. And at the DSI she connects with brands, retailers, tech partners and agencies to help advance the industry with her research and content.

Matthew Goynes

Co-Founder & Co-CEO Grocery Dealz

Matt Goynes is a seasoned marketing and technology executive with a proven track record of driving growth, innovation, and digital transformation across the retail and consumer sectors. With more than two decades of experience in mobile marketing, e-commerce, and customer engagement, Goynes has built a reputation as both an industry pioneer and strategic leader.

Prior to joining Grocery Dealz, Goynes held leadership roles at tech startups Pixability, InMar, and InMarket, where he spearheaded initiatives that delivered measurable growth, expanded customer acquisition channels, and leveraged emerging technologies to reshape the consumer experience. Known for his ability to blend visionary strategy with hands-on execution, he has been recognized as a thought leader in mobile commerce and omni-channel marketing.

At Grocery Dealz, Goynes plays a key role in shaping the company's growth strategy and innovation roadmap, helping position the brand at the forefront of the evolving retail media landscape. His expertise in mobile engagement, data-driven marketing, and consumer insights will be instrumental in driving long-term value creation for the company, its partners, and its investors.

Mark Williamson

AVP Retail Media Costco Wholesale

Mark Williamson is AVP of Retail Media at Costco Wholesale, where he leads the strategic expansion of the retailer’s advertising ecosystem. A veteran of the commerce media industry, Mark brings a wealth of experience, having successfully built and scaled retail media programs at Sam’s Club, Ahold Delhaize USA, and Epsilon/CitrusAd before joining Costco in 2023.
At Costco, Mark and team are architecting a retail media platform fundamentally designed "the Costco way." Under his leadership, the network prioritizes member trust, merchant alignment, and long-term value over short-term ad monetization. Mark is highly focused on leveraging omnichannel data to bridge the gap between digital discovery and physical warehouse sales, delivering a transparent, closed-loop platform that drives provable outcomes for brand partners and optimizes experiences for members

Mert Damlapinar

Founder & Executive Director ecommert

Mert Damlapinar is top voice on LinkedIn a multi-award-winning eCommerce executive with over 18 years hands-on global experience. He held director and VP roles in eCommerce, digital marketing, and sales at companies like Sabra/PepsiCo, Mondelez and L’Oreal. He talks to digital leaders of global CPGs all around the world and shares his research and insights with eCommert.

He holds a master’s degree in applied business analytics from Boston University, executive management degrees in integrated digital marketing from Cornell University, and applied data science and digital transformation degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He published his second book, Agile Analytics for Startups, in October 2022, and he's currently working on his 3rd book.

Neil Stern

CEO Good Food Holdings

Neil Z. Stern is the Chief Executive Officer of Good Food Holdings, which operates premium and natural & organic supermarkets spanning from Seattle to San Diego under five grocery banners: Bristol Farms, Lazy Acres Natural Market, Metropolitan Market, New Seasons Market, and New Leaf Community Markets.
Prior to joining Good Food Holdings, Neil was a senior partner at McMillanDoolittle specializing in the area of strategic planning and the development of new retail concepts. During his 35+ year career, Neil has developed strategies and new concepts for a diverse variety of world class clients across the retail industry.
Neil serves on the Board of Directors at Shafer Vineyards, Northeast Grocers, Imperial Distributors and Vroom Delivery. Neil is the author of two books, Winning At Retail and Greentailing and Other Revolutions in Retailing.

Neil Saunders

Managing Director GlobalData

Neil is Managing Director of GlobalData’s retail division – a practice that was born out of the retail analyst firm Conlumino he founded in 2011, which was subsequently acquired by GlobalData. In his role he oversees the development of the company’s proposition and its research output. He also works with major retail clients worldwide to help them understand the retail, shopper, and market landscapes – advising them on how best to develop, evolve and implement business strategies. Prior to his current role, Neil worked for the John Lewis Partnership where he was involved, among other things, in the planning and relocation of new stores, the development of the ecommerce business, and the creation of technical and information systems. Neil lives in Scottsdale, Arizona and in Maui, Hawai’i.

Peter Strong

Partner The Partnering Group

Peter Strong is a Partner at The Partnering Group, where he specializes in helping retailers, consumer products companies, and technology companies accelerate growth through digital commerce, strategic transformation, and capability building.
Peter brings deep expertise at the intersection of eCommerce, digital strategy, and organizational change, advising clients on how to modernize commercial models, unlock online growth, and build the internal capabilities required to sustain performance. His work focuses on translating strategy into execution—aligning teams, processes, and technology to deliver measurable business impact.
He partners closely with senior leaders to:
•            Define and activate eCommerce and omnichannel growth strategies
•            Design digital-first operating models that integrate sales, marketing, and supply chain
•            Lead enterprise transformation initiatives, including change management and capability development
•            Strengthen retailer–supplier collaboration in an increasingly digital ecosystem
Prior to joining TPG, Peter held leadership roles across both retail and CPG, including leading digital commerce at Mars Wrigley and omnichannel initiatives at Meijer. This dual perspective enables him to bring a pragmatic, partnership-oriented approach to solving complex commercial challenges.
Peter is also an active thought partner in the industry, contributing to the advancement of digital commerce capabilities and next-generation retail strategies.

2026 Grocery Industry Icons and Innovators

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