Jen Beatty
Vice President, Sales, The Emerson Group
Jen Beatty, Vice President of Sales at The Emerson Group, is an experienced sales executive known for driving growth and delivering impactful results. She excels in sales leadership, strategic planning, and customer relationship management, developing and executing strategies that foster long-term partnerships and accelerate revenue.
Jen holds a Bachelor of Arts in Information Systems and Business from Susquehanna University. She began her career in the buying department at Bon Ton Department Stores, then moved to Rite Aid, where she held various Category Management roles. During her time there, she developed expertise in health and wellness, assortment planning, vendor negotiations, and category growth.
As Vice President of Sales at The Emerson Group, Jen leads high-performing teams, optimizes sales operations, and identifies new business opportunities. She plays a pivotal role in shaping Emerson’s growth by driving incremental value for clients and guiding the organization through evolving market dynamics.
Tabitha Benefield, RDN
Manager, Nutrition, Health & Well-being, FMI - The Food Industry Association
Kim Cox
Managing Director, Omnicommerce, NielsenIQ
Gabrielle D'Agostino
Director, Retail Center of Excellence & Thought Leadership, Circana
Gabrielle D'Agostino is a director of retail thought leadership at Circana. Gabrielle oversees the retail thought leadership team, providing data-driven actionable insights and opportunities to the industry. She has been at Circana for 8 years and is passionate about bringing data to life through story-telling and inspiring clients to act and unlock business growth. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Long Island University and enjoys spending time with her fiancé, family, and friends.
Tom Duffy
Senior Advisor, Nonfoods Community Development, FMI
Tom Duffy is a senior advisor to FMI for building the nonfoods community and growth initiative as part of the FMI vision for total store collaboration. In this role, Tom enhances trading partner collaboration to address challenges, opportunity gaps and innovations designed to drive profitable growth in General Merchandise, Household, and HBC categories and to better serve consumers.
As former vice president of member development at GMDC/Retail Tomorrow, and prior roles with Acosta and Nielsen, Tom brings a depth of relevant programming and growth opportunities to the FMI initiative. Tom is based in southern New Jersey and enjoys spending time with family, golfing, surf fishing and rooting for the Philadelphia sports teams.
Debbie Kelly
Director of Insights, WSL Strategic Retail
Steve Markenson
Vice President, Research, FMI
In his role at FMI, Markenson oversees the research & insights practice. He leads the discovery process on the latest industry trends and operational insights that champion FMI as a credible voice of the food retail industry. Markenson is a market research executive with 30 years of progressive experience in his field. His diverse experience includes research design, information/data collection and analysis and strategic planning.
Markenson was formerly the president of WBA Research, a national market research firm founded in 1987, where he oversaw more than 30 full-time professionals, along with a part-time staff of more than 100 telephone interviewers, field interviewers and support staff. Earlier in his career, Markenson worked at Snyder Communications, where he directed all aspects of more than 90 annual market research studies and presented results to brand management, market research departments, advertising and promotion agencies.
Margaret Swiatkowski
Executive Director, Retail Center of Excellence, Circana
Dave Wendland
Vice President, Strategic Relations, Hamacher Resource Group, Inc.
Dave Wendland is a 30-year veteran of the consumer-packaged goods industry and is passionate about optimizing results across the retail supply chain. A sought-after speaker for industry conferences and frequent editorial contributor, Dave always provides dynamic and thought-provoking presentations and idea-generating articles.
As vice president strategic relations and one of the co-owners of Hamacher Resource Group, Dave has connected, counseled, and offered business-improvement solutions to a variety of manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and technology providers. With his bird’s-eye view of retail, he is able to assess and offer creative ideas to help companies of all sizes whether they are market leaders or new to the industry.