USA’s First CPG-Focused Summit on OmniShopper, AI, Retail Media & Digital Shelf Strategies!

Nina Johnson is a 20-year seasoned CPG professional with broad functional experience across the food and beverage industry, including Coca-Cola, fairlife LLC and Kellanova. She has worked on a variety of brands from start-ups like feastables chocolates, fairlife Core Power to billion-dollar brands like Coca-Cola, Cheez-It & Pringles. She has proven experience in category insights, revenue growth management and commercial strategy. Her expertise is focused on delivering successful GTM strategies that maximize the value proposition across the shopper, retailer and supplier landscape.

Currently, Nina is the Vice President of Commercial Strategy for the Salty BU at Mars Snacking. In this role, she leads Brand & Innovation commercialization, Category Strategy and Revenue Growth Management for the Total US geography. She is directly responsible for driving top-line solutions that are realized in the marketplace.

In addition to her current profession, Nina is active in several organizations, from educational groups (PTA President, School Board Member) to NextUp (member) and is a mentor for several associates.

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Michael is a growth-focused senior leader who has helped build iconic, consumer-loved, and shopper-relevant brands. Michael is the Vice President, Brand Development at IGA, Inc., where he leads key marketing strategies, and his team works with CPG brands to unlock growth with independent grocery retailers and shoppers at scale. With prior leadership roles at Coca-Cola, founder of What Brands Want, LLC, and as an adjunct professor at Georgia State University, he brings a distinctive perspective on connected commerce, loyalty, retail innovation, and winning with today’s shoppers.

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Jamie has 12+ years in conversion-based media with a focus within the CPG vertical across Google and the ecommerce space leading activation strategy.  She oversees the Connected Commerce team where the team focuses on retailer paid media and in-store activations. Her main responsibilities are leading agency/vendor relationships, ensuring retailer commitments, overseeing JPBs, understanding measurement, and creating roadmaps to accelerate GPN’s strategy.

In her free time, she loves hanging out with family. She has a 4.5 year old little boy and a 4 month baby girl. You can find them on the weekends exploring parks, finding a new restaurant, strolling a farmers market or attempting to paddleboard.

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Michele McNamara is a proven commerce leader passionate about consumers’ shopping journeys and customer experiences. As Director of Digital Commerce & Omni Activation, Michele is responsible for driving digital sales fundamentals and bringing 360 campaigns to life across Newell Brands’ top 25 strategic brands. Her efforts span multiple classes of trade and impact nearly $1B in revenue.  Prior to Newell, Michele held progressive roles in Brand & Trade Marketing as well as Sales and Category Management at Procter & Gamble, Reckitt Benckiser, Mondelez and Chobani. She has spent the last 15 years focused on connected commerce. Michele holds an MBA from Canisius University and a B.A. in Advertising from Michigan State University.

Alison Castillo is a purpose-driven digital commerce leader with 20+ years of CPG experience. As Head of dCom Foods US at Unilever, she drives digital strategy for iconic food brands and unlocks joint value with retailers through data-driven partnership and transformation. Her background spans sales, customer and category strategy, industry relations, and sustainability. A passionate advocate for women in the industry, she serves on the WE Board. She lives in the Chicago area with her husband, Alex, and their two children.

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Bob Waibel has been with Conagra Brands for 16 years. He leads the Commerce Marketing and Retail Innovation teams out of the Chicago Headquarters in Chicago.

 Bob and the Commerce Marketing team work closely with our customers to drive sales across retailer ecosystems through marketing activation by leveraging shopper and retailer expertise.

Bob has been in the CPG industry for 30 years working on both the manufacturer and marketing agency side, with industry leaders like The Coca-Cola Company, Anheuser-Busch, Leo Burnett and WPP. In 2023, Bob was inducted into the Path To Purchase Institute Hall of Fame.

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Karin Gerlach is an experienced marketing professional with over 20 years of success in the marketing and advertising industries. Currently Senior Manager of Circle K’s newly launched Retail Media Network, she’s leading strategic initiatives and innovative advertising solutions for her partners. Previously held roles at the Kroger Company and as VP of Marketing for an independent beverage company. She is known for blending creativity with analytics to drive performance, growth, and impactful marketing programs.

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Jenny leads Consumer Brand Marketing for Dairy Farmers of America Cheese and Butter businesses where she oversees the brand strategy, holistic marketing planning and execution, and the innovation pipeline. Recent cross-channel programming including Plugrà® Premium European Style Butter’s Pi(e) day and Borden® Cheese’s Grilled Cheese of the Year activations have led to unique opportunities to break through the clutter and deliver business results. Prior to DFA, Jenny led New Construction Marketing for James Hardie Building Products and various business units at Barilla, including the launch of Barilla Pesto and Ready Meals. In her free time, Jenny enjoys traveling the world having recently checked all 7 continents off the list, playing games with her nieces and nephews, and spending far too much time wandering the aisles of the grocery store.

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Kate provides strategic guidance across theHormel portfolio of brands regarding digital investment and plans to reachcommerce goals. She led Hormel’s first multi-brand omni channel activation forthe Super Bowl LIX entertaining period. Kate’s professional experience isgrounded in agency client service and has evolved into delivering digitalexcellence for consumer brands. Kate has a unique ability to set and hold avision that will drive growth, inspire and influence key stakeholders, andimplement plans to get to goal.

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Genevieve Castonguay is VP of Marketing at ShopLiftr, where she has spent the last six years building the programs, positioning, and go-to-market strategy that connect brands to shoppers at the moment that matters most.

With over 15 years across B2B and B2C markets - spanning media (Astral/Bell, Newcap), fintech and loyalty (Ackroo), and healthcare (Daniels Health & Clorox) - her career has been defined by one consistent thread: making marketing measurable, messaging relevant, and growth repeatable.

A published author, entrepreneur, and cancer survivor, Genevieve leads with the conviction that clarity and resilience aren't soft skills - they're strategic ones.

Paul is the Co-Founder and CEO of CheckoutSmart and a pioneer in harnessing consumer data to power AI and ML models for top consumer brands. With a background in CPG sales & marketing, he leads a team dedicated to transforming data into actionable insights for brand owner clients.

One example of their work is using specially trained AI models to tag consumer product reviews. This enables clients to make smarter product decisions and deliver enhanced online customer experiences. He is passionate about leveraging technology and smart ways of working to unlock new opportunities in consumer analytics.

As the Senior Vice President of Strategy at Wayvia, Brett drives the company’s marketing, product, and community initiatives, helping omnichannel brands innovate in connected commerce. Backed by over two decades of data and innovation, Wayvia is powering the intelligent path to revenue —purpose-built for the complexity of omnicommerce.

With 20+ years in SaaS, Brett has built and led best-in-class global customer success organizations, shaping strategies that turn customers into long-term, high-value partners. Brett's leadership and marketing philosophy is rooted in customer success, data-driven insights, and strategic execution — ensuring brands don’t just adopt technology, but fully leverage it to achieve measurable business outcomes. At Wavyia, Brett is on a mission to connect people, ideas, and thought leadership — helping shape how technology, data, and intelligence continue to transform brand commerce.

Marjan Cvijanović is the Senior Global Strategic Customer Success Partner at Wayvia and a recognized leader in retail media and connected commerce, with more 15 years of experience partnering with leading global CPG and retail brands to drive strategic growth, accelerate innovation, and help organizations navigate the future of evolving commerce through measurable results and creative, next-generation strategies.