Walmart's Andrea Thomas to Present
Andrea Thomas, Walmart's Senior VP of Marketing and Private Brands, will be speaking next Wednesday, August 19th at 11:30 in Bentonville as part of the Champion University speaker series. I'll be blogging away and we'll be hosting a great group of CPG and CE suppliers, licensing executives and other colleagues so if you are planning on attending (and I strongly suggest that anyone who works with Walmart or touches private label do just that), stop by our table and say hello (RSVP information provided below). Directly after the presentation, we'll be finalizing the details for our Branding Retail Salon and that evening, brainstorming on opportunities within the licensing community with visiting guest, Jennifer Coleman, SVP of Marketing and New Business Development for LIMA.
Back to the presentation . . . Andrea leads the brand management, product development and co-manufacturing activities for a $15 billion-with-a-"b" portfolio of private brands in Walmart's grocery, dry goods, health & beauty, pharmacy and pet categories. These once-sleepy groups are on fiya now . . . Everyone from Dollar General to Walgreens and Target are harnessing the power of groceries to drive shopping frequency . . . and health & beauty has emerged as a sweet spot of differentiation as value shoppers seek alternatives to department stores.
Ms. Thomas' oversight of Walmart's goliath Great Value private label transformation is reason enough to attend since it is setting the standard for massive scale private label upgrades.
We hope to see you there and look for our blog coverage and insights on Monday, August 24th
non-Champion members - tickets $50.00
corporate tables of ten - $500.00
RSVP to Tammy Thurow at the Chamber - 479-273-2841