2027 Annual Meeting & Leadership Conference

Andrea has excelled in various leadership positions, including sales, operations, product strategy, supplier relations, acquisition integration, and marketing. Before becoming CEO, She served as President for two years, where she led the Commercial and Operations teams through post-COVID realignments, capacity expansion, M&A integration, and crucial succession planning.

He helps some of the world’s largest retailers and consumer packaged goods brands understand shopper needs, understanding what is coming next and unlock opportunities. Drawing on more than a decade of experience at Mintel, Nick brings together consumer insight, market intelligence and future-focused thinking to turn complex retail change into clear, actionable implications for brands and businesses.

He has extensive experience in private brand sourcing, assortment management, and strategy development, built over a decade with Lidl in Europe and the US. During this period, John led a merchandising team managing ~$700M across Fresh, Frozen, and Center Store.

...and analysis with attitude, finding critical, relevant and resonant lessons not just in the world of retailing, but also in sports, popular culture and a wide range of other businesses. Kevin is the author of “Retail Rules! 52 Ways To Achieve Retail Success," a guidebook for competing effectively and efficiently on Main Street, and co-author, with Michael Sansolo, of “The Big Picture: Essential Business Lessons from the Movies,” which uses film narratives to teach about leadership, marketing and surviving the workplace.

Most recently, Juan served as Vice President Our Brands at Kroger, with overall responsibility to manage and grow Kroger’s private label business worth $32 billion at a national level. This included oversight into product development, testing, branding, marketing and category management. Prior to Kroger, he was Senior Vice President of Private Brands at Ahold-Delhaize USA, Vice President at Topco, and Director of Own Brand at H-E-B.

Dianne transitioned to Daymon’s corporate business development team and led the health, beauty, and baby division in Client Services for Daymon globally. She has also led Daymon’s new business efforts, opening new offices and accounts, including Walmart and Costco.

Bryan spent over 20 years as Chief Knowledge Officer for Retail at Kantar, served as SVP of Commerce for Omnicom’s retail marketing agencies and was a co-host of the popular CPG Guys podcast as well as The Gildenberg Omnicomment.

Lindsey has more than 20 years of experience in procurement and operations leadership at ALDI, with expertise in procurement optimization, supply chain efficiency and vendor relationship management.

With more than 25 years in the Consumer-Packaged Goods industry and over 1,500 workshops delivered across 50 countries, Julien brings fresh insights and actionable strategies that inspire growth and transformation.

Lauren also currently serves on the boards of the Private Label Manufacturers Association (PLMA) and the Agricultural Utilization Research Institute (AURI) and mentors emerging food and beverage entrepreneurs through MN Cup and Techstars Farm to Fork. Prior to SunOpta, she held leadership roles at General Mills and at Flagstone.

This includes a wide range of sectors including business-to-business (B2B), travel, retail, fast-moving consumer goods, charities, governments and non-governmental organizations. Fern is an expert in primary research solutions and brings a powerful mix of logic and creativity to identify the insight and evidence needed to help clients make informed business decisions.

He currently serves as the research director of the Coca-Cola Retailing Research Councils for both supermarkets and convenience stores. In his 13 years as senior vice president at FMI, the biggest food retail association in the United States, he was responsible for all education, supply chain and research activities. In this position, he developed an in-depth perspective of the changing nature of cooking, eating and shopping. Before joining FMI, Michael was Editor-in-Chief of Progressive Grocer magazine. He recently authored Business Rules! a collection of diverse and useful lessons in business success.

A leader in the grocery and CPG industry for over 25 years, Parag previously served as a Vice President at The GIANT Company and prior to that, he spent over two decades at Wakefern Food Corp.

A proven leader in strategic cost management, Bradley has more than 35 years of experience as CFO, COO and Controller for middle-market companies and Fortune 500 divisions.

...disposal of packaged goods can be impacted by contextual cues related to product design, labeling, and retailing. Her research has been featured in regional and national media outlets.