Given that surveys time and again identify women as the principal retail buyers, retail has been so slow to embrace women in leadership roles. Many women leaders, many of whom launched game-changing brands or redefined existing businesses. Yet within the boardroom, there’s a lack of diversity.
However, the story is slowly changing. Here we highlight the women marketing leaders at the forefront of retail innovation, steering businesses forward.
Alison Bodek

With over 20 years of experience in the industry, Alison Bodek is heading the marketing department as the director of marketing and analytics at Amazon Prime Video. Before joining Amazon, she worked with Groupon, Capital One, and GE Energy brands. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Richmond.
Amanda Jennings

Strategic and creative marketer with a track record of delivery and success in the industry, Amanda Jennings heads the marketing department as a director of marketing communications food at The Co-operative Group. Before joining the Co-op, she worked with RockCorps, London 2012, O2 UK, Organic, and DDB. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Otago.
Amanda Rassi

Marketing executive with 20 years of experience at leading CPG, retail, and analytics companies, Amanda Rassi is SVP, chief marketing officer at Michaels Stores. Before joining the company, she worked with brands like Kroger, P&G, and 84.51˚. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Miami University.
Andrea von Kaenel

An ecommerce and communications expert with a great passion for people and strategies. Andrea von Kaenel is the chief marketing officer at Migros Online. Before joining Migros, she worked with Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund, and Namics AG, and was a research assistant at Harvard University. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of St.Gallen.
Ann Vereecken

Passionate and experienced marketing professional with a demonstrated history of working in well-known FMCG companies, Ann Vereecken is the marketing director of Confiserie Leonidas SA. Before joining the company, she worked with Mondelez, Douwe Egberts, and InBev. She holds a degree from the University of Antwerp.
Caroline van Turennout

With over 25 years of experience in the industry, Caroline van Turennout heads the marketing department at Zeeman textielSupers as director of marketing and ecommerce. Before joining the Zeeman, she worked with SAN | Stichting Adverteerdersjury Nederland, RMI Retail Media Initiatief, HEMA, Intratuin and Ahold. She holds a degree from the University of Amsterdam.
Charlotte Chaidron

With over 10 years of experience in retail and food and strategic consulting, Charlotte Chaidron heads the marketing department as director brand, go-to-market and content at Delhaize Belgium. Before joining Delhaize, she worked with Monitor Deloitte, Deloitte Luxembourg, and L’Oréal. She holds a master’s degree from the Louvain School of Management.
Christelle Maitrehanche

With market expertise in retail GMS/GSS-extensive experience in purchasing, and over 30 years of experience in the industry, Christelle Maitrehanchet is the director of marketing at Cora France. Before joining Cora, she worked with Speedy France. She holds a diploma certificate from ISEG.
Ciara Gary A

Retail marketing strategist with P&L and multi-unit operations leadership experience, Ciara Gary A is the chief membership and marketing officer at Sam’s Club. Before joining Sam’s Club, she worked with Walmart, Johnson & Johnson, JPMorgan Chase and Inroads. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Claire Farrant

Experienced marketing expert with a demonstrated history of working in the retail industry, Claire Farrant is the marketing director at Lidl GB. Before joining Lidl, she worked with Tesco PLC, Woolworths, and Kerry Foods. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Huddersfield.
Cynthia Merope

With over 15 years of experience in the industry, Cynthia Merope is the marketing director at Metro France. Before joining Metro, she worked with France Quick. She holds a master’s degree from SKEMA Business School.
Flore Delobelle

With over 15 years of experience in the industry, Flore Delobelle heads the marketing department as customer marketing and media director Leroy Merlin. Before joining Leroy Merlin, she worked with Capgemini, Europcar and Voyages-sncf.com. She holds a degree from the Rennes School of Business.
Hanneke Broekhuizen-Arts

Translates trends and developments into strategies, actions, and results, Hanneke Broekhuizen-Arts heads the marketing department as commercial manager at Plus Retail. Before joining Plus Retail, she worked with TastyBasics, Koninklijke Euroma BV, DA Retailgroep BV and Organic Flavor Company. She holds an MBA from Nyenrode Business University.
Jennifer Kalnitsky Palerino

An innovative leader with a passion for leading and inspiring teams, Jennifer Kalnitsky Palerino is the head of marketing and ecommerce at Kroger. She worked with Vitacost.com, CBS Interactive, and Ultimate Software. She holds a degree from the University of Georgia.
Lisette van Hooff-Akkerman

With over 10 years of experience in the industry, Lisette van Hooff-Akkerman is the director of customer strategy marketing and communications at ALDI Netherlands. Before joining ALDI, she worked with Bakker Bart and V&D. She holds a degree from TIAS School for Business and Society.



















Microsoft Dynamics 365 represents a robust cloud-based CRM solution with features such as pipeline assessment, relationship analytics, and conversational intelligence. It utilises AI-powered insights to provide actionable intelligence via predictive analytics, lead scoring, sentiment analysis, etc. Currently, Microsoft operates in 190 countries and is made up of more than 220,000 employees worldwide.
HubSpot is an inbound marketing, sales, and customer service software provider, offering robust CRM and automation solutions. Some of its products include Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Operations Hub, Content Hub, Commerce Hub, Marketing Analytics and Dashboard Software. Guided by its inbound methodology, HubSpot enables companies to prioritise innovation and customer success.
Monday.com is a project management software company, offering a cloud-based platform that enables businesses
Headquartered in San Mateo, California, Freshworks is a global AI-powered business software provider. Its tech stack includes a scalable and comprehensive suite for IT, customer support, sales, and marketing teams, ensuring value for immediate business impact. Its product portfolio includes Customer Service Suite, Freshdesk, Freshchat, Freshcaller, Freshsuccess, and Freshservice. Freshservice for Business Teams has helped several global organisations to enhance their operational efficiency.
Talkdesk offers an innovative AI-powered customer-centric tech stack to its global partners. The company provides generative AI integrations, delivering industry-specific solutions to its customers. Talkdesk CX Cloud and Industry Experience Clouds utilise modern machine learning and language models to enhance contact centre efficiency and client satisfaction.

The company offers comprehensive cloud-based solutions, such as Microsoft Dynamics 365, Gaming Consoles, Microsoft Advertising, Copilot, among other things, to help organisations offer enhanced CX and ROI. Its generative-AI-powered speech and voice recognition solutions,such as Cortana and Azure Speech Services empowers developers to build intelligent applications.
IBM is a global hybrid cloud and AI-powered
Uniphore is an enterprise-class, AI-native company that was incubated in 2008. Its enterprise-class multimodal AI and data platform unifies all elements of voice, video, text and data by leveraging Generative AI, Knowledge AI, Emotion AI and workflow automation. Some of its products include U-Self Serve, U-Assist, U-Capture, and U-Analyze. Its Q for Sale is a conversational intelligence software that guides revenue teams with AI-powered insights, offering clarity on how to effectively keep prospects engaged.
Google Cloud accelerates every organisation’s ability to digitally transform its business. Its enterprise-grade solutions leverage modern technology to solve the most criticial business problems 
8×8 offers out-of-the-box contact centre solutions, assisting all-size businesses to efficiently meet customer needs and preferences. It offers custom CRM integrations support and integrates effortlessly with third-party CRMs like Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Zendesk, and more. Offering global support in all time zones & development teams in 5 continents, its patented geo-routing solution ensures consistent voice quality.
Sprinklr is a comprehensive enterprise software company for all customer-focused functions. With advanced AI, Sprinklr’s unified customer experience management (Unified-CXM) platform lets organisations offer human experiences to every customer, every time, across any modern channel.
Upland offers a comprehensive suite of contact centre and customer service solutions with products including InGenius, Panviva, Rant & Rave, and RightAnswers. InGenius enables organisations to connect their existing phone system with CRM, further enhancing agent productivity. Panviva provides compliant and omnichannel capabilities for highly regulated industries. Whereas, Rant & Rave, and RightAnswers are its AI-powered solutions,
Zoho Social, a part of Zoho’s suite of 50+ products, is a comprehensive social media management platform for businesses and agencies. The Zoho Social dashboard includes a robust set of features, such as Publishing Calendar, Bulk Scheduler, and Approval Management to offer businesses all the essential social media publishing tools. Its monitoring tools help enterprises track and respond to relevant social conversations.
Hootsuite, headquartered in Vancouver, is a social media management platform that streamlines the process of managing multiple social media accounts. Some of its core offerings include social media content planning and publishing, audience engagement tools, analytics and social advertising. Its easy-to-integrate capabilities help marketing teams to schedule and publish social media posts efficiently.
Brandwatch enables businesses to build and scale the optimal strategy for their clients with intuitive, use-case-focused tools that are easy and quick to master. Bringing together consumer intelligence and social media management, the company helps its users react to the trends that matter, collaborate on data-driven content, shield the brand from threats and manage all the social media channels at scale.
Zoho Corporation offers innovative and tailored software to help leaders grow their business. Zoho’s 55+ products aid sales and marketing, support and collaboration, finance, and recruitment requirements. Its customer analytics capabilities come with a conversational feature, Ask Zia. It enables users to ask questions and get insights in the form of reports and widgets in real-time.
Salesforce-owned Tableau is an AI-powered analytics and business intelligence platform, offering the breadth and depth of capabilities that serve the requirements of global enterprises in a seamless, integrated experience. Marketers can utilise generative AI models, AI-powered predictions, natural language querying, and recommendationsons.
Fullstory is a behavioural data platform, helping C-suite leaders make informed decisions by injecting digital behavioural data into its analytics stack. Its patented technology uncovers the power of quality behavioural data at scale, transforming every digital visit into actionable insights. Enterprises can increase funnel conversion and identify their highest-value customers effortlessly.
Contentsquare is a cloud-based digital experience analytics platform, helping brands track billions of digital interactions, and turn those digital
Amplitude is a product analytics platform, enabling businesses to track visitors with the help of collaborative analytics. The platform leverages the capabilities of
Adobe Experience Cloud offers a comprehensive set of applications, capabilities, and services specifically designed to address day-to-day requirement for personalised customer experiences at scale. Its platform helps play an essential role in managing different digital content or assets to improve customer happiness. Its easy-to-optimise content gives users appropriate marketing streams, ensuring product awareness.
Started in 2005 in a Sweden-based small town, Norrköping, Voyado offers a customer experience cloud platform that includes a customer loyalty management system. This platform helps businesses design and implement customer loyalty programs, track customer
TapMango provides a comprehensive, customisable, flexible and feature-rich customer loyalty program. The loyalty tools include an integrated suite of customised consumer-facing technology, easy-to-use merchant tools, and automation algorithms, all aimed at enhancing customer experience. Adaptable to any industry, TapMango’s platform helps merchants compete with larger chains, converting customer one-time purchases into profitable spending habits.









Adobe Experience Cloud offers a comprehensive set of applications, capabilities, and services specifically designed to address day-to-day requirements for personalised customer experiences at scale. Its innovative platform has played an essential role in managing different digital content or assets, to improve customer happiness or satisfaction. Some of its products include Adobe Gen Studio, Experience Manager Sites, Real-time CDP, and Marketo Engage.





























