Speakers

Mark joined the Operating Board of Sainsbury’s in June 2020. He has significant experience in customer insight, brand communication and digital marketing. Mark joined Sainsbury’s in 2012, becoming Marketing Director in 2017. He was appointed Chief Marketing Officer in August 2019 and has responsibility for Marketing & Loyalty across the Sainsbury’s, Argos, Tu clothing and Habitat brands.

Mark has also been responsible for the Nectar Loyalty coalition and the Nectar360 media business since 2018. In 2021, Mark assumed responsibility for all Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability activity, including delivery of our Plan for Better targets. Prior to joining Sainsbury’s, Mark built his digital skills leading the Priority programme at O2, where he was Head of Sponsorship. Before this, Mark worked with key brands at Heineken UK where he was Brand Director.

He began his career at Procter & Gamble UK before working across Europe on a variety of brands. Mark is currently a Council Member of the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA) and a Fellow of the Marketing Society.

Colin is part of Retail Media Works, who work with brands and retailers on their digital commerce and retail media strategies. Clients include the Very Group, Superdrug, Migros (Turkey), Metcash (Australia), Sofidel / Kittensoft (global), Glanbia (global), Colgate, Barilla Europe, Ferrero, Fonterra (NZ) and The Warehouse Group (NZ).

Colin is the author of eight best practice reports on eCommerce, Marketplaces and Retail Media and three online courses in Digital Commerce and Retail Media.

Colin is a Marketing Week Magazine – writer & columnist – since 2015 as well as being Editor-in-Chief for the Retail Media Newsletter. He is a Fellow of the Marketing Institute of Ireland.

Amir Rasekh is the Managing Director of Nectar360 – a loyalty, insight, and retail media business. Nectar360 serves over 900 clients every year including many of the biggest brands globally – AMEX, Esso, and British Airways through to Unilever, PepsiCo, Nestle, Samsung and Apple.

He has over 20 years of experience in fast paced and commercial environments and his core specialisms include launching and scaling successful insight and retail media businesses.

Amir has held leadership roles at Nectar360 for over a decade now, prior to this he spent many years at Sainsbury’s working across a myriad of functions including the entrepreneurial Business Development division, where he launched a new insight and media agency to the market called Insight to Communication (i2C) – now known as Nectar360.

He is hugely passionate about putting the customer at the centre of decision-making. Amir is also energised by building, leading and empowering high-performing teams to deliver strategic change, client benefit and commercial growth.

Paul Brooks is the GM of Coles 360, the retail media offering for Coles Group. Paul is an experienced Executive with a demonstrated history of working in retail media, media, marketing, and advertising industry.

He has strong new business development with a track record of success in change management, leadership, client partnership and delivering commercial outcomes. He believes that as business continues to change at pace, a modern and dynamic leadership style is required with a focus on agility, people focused cultures, vision, and exceptional emotional intelligence.

Retail media is one of the most dynamic and exciting sectors and is about to experience a period of exceptional growth, and he wants Coles 360 to be leading the charge.

Outside of work, Paul is a keen sportsman who has competed in several challenging triathlons, marathons and cycling rides. He enjoys to Ski, play golf and football regularly and competitively with a keen interest in most sports. He loves spending time with his amazing wife and three children and enjoy nothing better than active time in and around the Northern beaches in Sydney.

Nich Weinheimer is the Executive Vice President, Strategy at Skai. In his current role, Nich delivers innovative technology and data solutions to the rapidly-evolving landscape of retailers and brands.

With over a decade of experience in digital advertising, Nich’s leadership includes roles as Head of Advertising for Buy Box Experts, Co-founder and Managing Partner of WNW International, Data Consulting and Enterprise Sales at Ekata, and Director of Sales Operations at Commerce Hub.

Alice Anson is Nectar360’s Director of Digital Media, looking after Nectar360’s digital proposition on all Sainsburys Group websites, managing the end-to-end retail media for Argos, as well leading their offsite capabilities through Nectar360’s proprietary Digital Trading Platform.

Alice’s background is in ecommerce across both retail and lifestyle brands and has been with Nectar360 since October 2018. Nectar360’s role is to create valuable relationships between brands and their customers, Alice ensures Nectar360 is at the forefront of digital consideration within the retail media space.

Jess leads Accenture Song’s Growth Marketing team in the UK. She started her career with Nike, before moving to Accenture Song where she helps brands to realise their business objectives by driving change across CX, digital, data and technology.

Jess’ retail media experience includes helping Sainsbury’s to design, build and launch their offsite retail media proposition.

Jatinder leads Accenture Song’s data intelligence practice globally. His data-driven creativity experience extends to AT&T, Ford Motor Company, IBM, iShares, Kroger, Mars Inc., McDonald’s, Pfizer, SAP, Uber, and the Volkswagen Group. Jatinder has held leadership roles at Omnicom and WPP in the U.S. and U.K.

He joined Accenture Song from DDB Worldwide, where he was previously the Chief Data Officer.

Qaiser is an industry veteran and comes with over 20 years of strong and varied emerging & developed markets experience. As the Head of Consumer Experience, Global Brands and Europe at Mondelez International, Qaiser is at the helm of a team dedicated to fostering consumer engagement excellence with focus on Data Driven Marketing and Activation.

Prior to joining Mondelez, Qaiser was at Bayer Consumer Healthcare where he was the global lead on the Precision Marketing initiative as well the Global Head of Digital Media & Measurement based out of Switzerland. Qaiser has also spent 5 years with GSK Consumer Healthcare in Asia Pacific where he was driving GSK’s Digital Media agenda with specific focus on Programmatic and Ad Tech.

Prior to moving to client side, Qaiser spent nearly 13 years working with world class Media Agencies across Asia. His notable assignments have been with media agencies such as Mindshare, Mediacom, Initiative Media and Starcom MediaVest Group China where he was the Comms Planning & Operations lead for agency’s biggest client, Procter & Gamble. In addition to China and Singapore, Qaiser has worked in markets such as Middle East, Malaysia and Pakistan.

Harriet is the Chief Media and Partnerships Officer at Omnicom Media Group UK. Working in collaboration with the OMG agencies, Harriet leads media partner strategic relationships and digital channel best practice. Prior to this Harriet was General Manager of OMG UK Programmatic, responsible for all programmatic outputs and functions in the UK. Overseeing product development, analytics and engineering, activation, technology selection, inventory and data management and strategy, Harriet has over 20 years’ experience in media, working across multiple media channels and functions.

Previous roles within OMG UK, Digital Managing Partner at PHD for 4 years, and before then worked at OMG as Head of Digital Trading and Operations and Head of Interactive TV.

Ben Sylvan is Vice President for Data Partnerships at The Trade Desk, responsible for building a global data marketplace that enables retailers and brands to collaborate on data-driven advertising.

Before The Trade Desk, Ben spent eight years with the Oracle Data Cloud via its Datalogix acquisition, holding leadership roles across several functions, including strategy and sales. He spent the first half of his career in sports media, including more than seven years at ESPN.

Tom Priestman is Nectar 360’s new Director of Client Services, overseeing all FMCG Retail Media partnerships. With a passion for Marketing, Media, and Data Driven Strategies, Tom is working with brands to accelerate their Retail Media journey and drive measurable business impact.

Prior to joining Nectar 360, Tom most recently led the FMCG team at Meta after spending 6 years managing some of the largest Global and UK FMCG partnerships through the evolution of Social, Mobile, and AI.

Prior to Meta, Tom worked client side spending 6 years with Colgate-Palmolive, predominantly in the US, driving digital marketing evolution for their North America Division, notably across search, content, and eCommerce.

Mario leads the teams responsible for customer research and analytics, loyalty programs, personalization, in-store and shopper marketing, data monetization and retail media for 7-Eleven USA.

Mario joined 7-Eleven in 2020 with more than 20 years of experience in retail and retail-strategy consulting with top brands across USA, UK, France, Canada, Mexico, and Australia. His team manages several CPG-facing products aimed at understanding and marketing to the immediate consumption consumer across the funnel:

• 7Rewards and Speedy Rewards, loyalty programs with over 95M registered members
• C-Shopper, an analytics platform housing all retail and loyalty data
• The Brainfreeze Collective, a proprietary research platform with over 250K members
• Gulp, a retail media network aimed at the immediate consumption consumer across the funnel.

Mario has an engineering degree from UIA Mexico City and an MBA from Kellogg. He and his family live in the greater Dallas area.

Lynne leads the Microsoft Advertising (MSA) Global Partnerships and Retail Media organization and has been with Microsoft for 17 years. Her diverse career in advertising has included leading business strategy, expanding into global markets, and leading high performing sales teams with deep field experience in the U.S., Europe, and APAC regions. Her global journey and experience with various sales models have given Lynne a deep understanding of clients of all shapes and sizes, with different product and service needs.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Lynne led corporate communications at AT&T and customer experience and communications at Expedia.

In addition to driving innovation and growth with partners, retailers, and brands, Lynne is a lifelong learner who earned her MA and PhD in Philosophy at the New School for Social Research and BA in Sociology at Kenyon College.

Across all her experience building and evolving teams, Lynne is intentional about putting people and culture first, demonstrating Peter Drucker’s maxim that “culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

A longtime advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion, Lynne serves as Microsoft’s AI D&I Executive Sponsor.

Fiona has over 20 years’ experience in marketing strategy, data and technology, across EMEA, the US, LATAM and APAC. She has worked with some of the world’s largest brands, retailers, and media owners to drive growth and innovation for clients such as P&G, Mastercard, Coca-Cola, Carlsberg, Mars, Nectar 360 (Sainsbury’s), Dell, Morrisons, 7/Eleven, and Paramount+.

Fiona’s previous roles were:

• VP of Technology and CTO International, CBS Corporation (now Paramount+)
• Managing Director EMEA, Infinitive Marketing Consulting
• Chief Operating Officer, Captify Technologies (Search Intelligence self-service platform)

• 30+ years of experience across digital transformation, marketing and media, direct marketing – with concentration in retail media, advertising, direct marketing, and analytics
• Experience driving advanced marketing and advertising strategy for brands across consumer and B2B firms
• Extensive work in evaluation and strategy for ad tech firms and agencies
• Development multiple advanced strategies for publishers, both traditional and within retail, to drive improvements in all aspects of advertising monetization (sales, tech, analytics)
• Founded Accenture’s data monetization practice – focusing on helping organizations in retail, travel, FS, and media build formalized media networks and leveraging data for a host of use cases including identity verification, consumer panels, and governmental applications.
• Founded Accenture Interactive’s programmatic media agency.
• Executed several ground breaking studies in the US and Canada on media attribution for major networks (NBC Universal, Disney ABC TV, Think TV Canada)
• Strong understanding of marketing, media, agency, publishers ecosystems for B2B and well as B2C marketing and media execution
• Also, avid cyclist, runner, painter, swimmer – and devoted father

With 25 years in advertising and media technology, Tom works with tech and media companies in the U.S. and Europe to accelerate global commercial activity.

Tom has held senior roles at Google (established the first premium programmatic team), Admeld (the first programmatic SSP platform for publishers) and served as Advisor to McKinsey and many others.

Sophie is a highly respected executive within the retail and technology industries. As Managing Director, Retail and FMCG at Google, she brings over 30 years of executive leadership experience from giants including Asda, Tesco and Meta. A digital pioneer since 1995, Sophie was instrumental in driving Boots’ online transformation where, as a member of the Executive Committee, she led their critical digital response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Beyond her commercial acumen, she’s a multi-award winning, lifelong feminist, and a clear voice advocating and championing women in the workplace. Her highly regarded podcast “Courage is Contagious,” and status as a LinkedIn “Top Voice” on Gender Equity cement her reputation.

Shelley Smoler is Chief Creative Officer at Droga5 London, an agency she joined in 2017. She works across the agency’s entire roster of clients, leading much of the global Amazon business and nurturing creative talent.

Before Droga5, Shelley and her creative partner were creative directors at Bartle Bogle Hegarty London, working on brands including Audi, Google, Heineken, KFC, Mentos and The Guardian.

< Main page Agenda >