Picky eaters: 13 Expo West 2024 NEXTY Awards guest judges
Meet the folks who endlessly ate whatever was put in front of them: the guest judges for the 2024 Natural Products Expo West NEXTY Awards. Take a look.
February 27, 2024
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Alyssa Vescio
Senior Vice President of Merchandising, Center Store
Whole Foods Market
As the senior vice president of merchandising, center store, Alyssa has responsibility for Grocery, Wellness, Beauty, Local Merchandising, Merchandise Presentation, and Merchandise Execution. Alyssa celebrates what makes Whole Foods Market so special — unique products, industry leading quality standards, incredible supplier partners, and talented team members — and pushes our growth by continuing to advance our Merchandising capabilities and deliver operationally-sound programs.
Alyssa is known as an all-in, purpose drive leader who values authenticity, connectivity, and collective strength. She aims to create a culture that inspires individuals to be their best in service of the greater good.
Alyssa became SVP in November of 2020, after 3 years leading Wellness and Beauty and almost 20 years in Merchandising. Her experience spans product categories and merchandising disciplines including product selection, supplier partnership, promotional planning, pricing, presentation, and exclusive brands. Her passions for purpose, people, and product drive her forward in this role.
Anna Mayo
VP, NielsenIQ Beauty Vertical
As a vice president for NielsenIQ’s Beauty Vertical, Anna Mayo is an innovative thought leader within the beauty and personal care retailing space. NielsenIQ's beauty and personal care insights cover 100 global markets, providing the industry's most total view into omnichannel consumption and, in turn, empowering the next decade of beauty.
Throughout her 10 years at NielsenIQ, Anna has worked with cross functional teams to deliver proactive, industry-shaping insights and guide some of the world’s largest CPG clients through behavioral shifts and consumption trends. In her current role, Anna partners with beauty and personal care clients to develop cutting edge solutions, leverage new technology, drive marketing and sales strategies and identify unmet consumer needs. In addition, Anna is responsible for leading thought leadership for the Beauty Vertical, serving as an industry expert and appearing in broadcasts and publications such as Women’s Wear Daily and FOX Business, most recently.
Anna has a Master’s in Business from the University of Connecticut and resides in Connecticut with her husband and two children.
Brody Burk
Forager Manager, Sprouts Farmers Market
Brody is the forager manager at Sprouts Farmer’s Market, an Arizona-based natural specialty store that spans across 23 states and has over 400 locations. Brody is responsible for bringing innovative and differentiated products into Sprouts to help the company lead the market in innovation and to assist with the incubation of smaller brands. He prepares these emerging brands for national launch on the Innovation Center, delighting customers with unique and fun experiences they can only find while shopping at Sprouts.
Brody brings 13 years of retail experience—12 of which are in the natural specialty industry with Sprouts—with roles ranging from receiver, store-level grocery manager, assistant category manager, and forager manager at the Support Office. Brody nurtures his strong passion for natural and innovative products by helping small brands grow into formidable competitors in an ever-expanding market.
Dave Janowicz
Chief Retail Officer, Alive and Well
Dave Janowicz – current chief retail officer at Alive and Well overseeing all Retail and Pharmacy. Focused on guiding and fostering an environment and culture that provides our team members the opportunity to provide a best-in-class experience and service to our customers in assisting with their health and wellness needs.
Former chief retail officer at Pharmaca Integrative Pharmacy (30 locations)
Former corporate director of health and Wellness at Supervalu Inc
Former national category manager at Albertsons
Currently serving as an advisory board member to the University of Colorado – Leeds Business School
Graduate of Illinois State University
Evonne Chan
Senior Market Insights Analyst, SPINS
Evonne Chan is a senior market insights analyst for SPINS, a leading wellness-focused data company and advocate for the Natural Products Industry. With a Food Science background and a longstanding interest in data, she loves diving deep into omnichannel data to identify trends and to uncover the reasons behind consumer behavior. Evonne has created trend reports that have been presented at top industry conferences such as New Hope Natural Products Expo, Plant Based World, Supply Side, Active Nutrition and many more.
Holly Adrien
Natural and Organics Strategy and Innovation Manager
Kroger
Holly Adrien, the natural and organic strategy and innovation manager for The Kroger Company, is a strategic and passionate leader with over 18 years of analytic, merchandising and retail experience. She began her journey with The Kroger Co. within custom analytics at dunnhumbyUSA. She held various roles working with CPGs and Kroger to utilize customer data to inform strategy at dunnhumbyUSA and 84.51° before transitioning to Kroger Merchandising to oversee the Baby department in 2016. She was promoted to lead the Health/Beauty/Baby/Non-Edible Household Digital Merchandising team for Kroger.com and Vitacost.com before her promotion to manage strategy and innovation for natural and organic in November 2020. Holly’s deep background in customer insights, analytics and merchandising is used to develop The Kroger Co.’s strategic focus to meet customers’ evolving needs in natural and organic across the entire store. She has the privilege of collaborating with all Kroger banners, insight providers and established and emerging brands to continuously innovate in terms of assortment, promotion, best practices and communication to customers in-store and online.
Jason Bidart
Vice President of Merchandising, Food
Thrive Market
Jason Bidart is a 20-year veteran in the food/grocery industry with a passion for bringing the highest quality and best-tasting food products to market while positively impacting people, communities, and our planet. He is currently the vice president of merchandising of food at Thrive Market. Jason manages a team of passionate category managers and product innovators tasked with building and maintaining a highly-curated catalog of food products. His team follows strict standards and ensures that every product aligns with Thrive Market's core values of sustainable and ethical sourcing and mission of making healthy living affordable and accessible. Through his years in the industry, Jason has gained extensive experience in category management, merchandising, e-commerce, product innovation and development, and brand building in various roles at The Fresh Market, Earth Fare, Fairway Market, and Thrive Market.
John Grubb
Managing Partner
Summit Venture Management
John is managing partner of Summit Venture Management, where he consults with and invests alongside entrepreneurs and private equity firms in the growth of purpose-driven brands and businesses. Early in his career, he worked extensively in innovation and strategy with many of the world’s largest CPG brands. In the last 15 years, John has focused more on smaller disruptive brands in the natural and organic world, including work on novel bioactive ingredients and emerging food technology platforms. He was also founding board chair of the non-profit organization Naturally Network – now with entrepreneurial ecosystems in nine cities around the country.
Jonathan Lawerence
Vice President of Center Store
Fresh Thyme Market
Jonathan Lawrence is the vice president of center store and a founding member of Fresh Thyme Market. Based in Downers Grove, IL. Fresh Thyme has quickly grown to 71 stores across the Midwest. Growing up in the industry his grandfather started a chain of natural foods stores in the Phoenix area called Arizona Health Foods. AHF would eventually grow to 14 stores with over 100 employees before it was sold in 2003. Inheriting the entrepreneurial bug he partnered up with his uncle in 2005 to start Arizona Nutritional Sciences. There they developed the brand PlantFusion, one of the first multi-sourced plant-based protein powders on the market. In 2011 Jonathan went back to retail, first as an operator and then a merchant with Sunflower Farmers Market and Sprouts Farmers Market. His experience at every level of the business has been instrumental in preparing him for his current role at Fresh Thyme. Jonathan has a B.A. in Sociology from Arizona State University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Phoenix.
Kristine Carey
Executive Director
Naturally Boulder
Kristine is the executive director for Naturally Boulder. Her background includes being a food and beverage brand strategist and founder of Brand Guide. Working internally and as a consultant with pre-revenue startups and emerging brands, Kristine has led brand communication strategies and marketing programs for various natural products companies such as Frontier Brands, MyChelle Dermaceuticals, Healthy Skoop, Wedderspoon, Peak State Coffee and more.
She also created Brandamentals Academy, an eLearning branding and marketing communications course, and is a mentor with the University of Colorado's Leeds School of Business New Venture Launch.
Mary Rochelle
Marketing, Communications and Engagement Manager
Guckenheimer at Google
Mary Rochelle’s mission is to harness the power of food to co-create a more sustainable, equitable, and joyful world. As a connector and communicator, her curiosity has led to roles in the private sector, nonprofit world, and governmental institutions; work areas have included CPG communications strategy, food and nutrition insecurity, farm-to-institution procurement, nutrition and food system education programs, and food waste prevention. She is currently the marketing, communications & engagement manager for the Guckenheimer at Google Food program. In this role, she supports the mission to positively impact healthy and sustainable food systems through innovation and forward-thinking strategies.
With her roots in public relations and communications strategy, Mary managed communications for a spectrum of organic and natural CPG corporations and startups, grocery stores, and restaurant groups. From there she pivoted into hands-on work in high need K-12 schools in rural Montana, leading garden, cooking and nutrition lessons as a FoodCorps member. This work led to overseeing the Michigan FoodCorps program before moving home to Colorado to support the School Food Project at the Boulder Valley School District, a leading scratch-cooked, locally-sourced school meal program. During the COVID pandemic she helped develop a meal distribution program to address immediate food security needs of students and families, resulting in more than 2 million meals distributed.
Mary received her bachelor's degree from the University of Colorado and a Master’s degree in Sustainable Food Systems and a graduate certificate in Food Policy and Sustainability Leadership from Arizona State University. Along the way, Mary has worked for several organic farms and food systems organizations. She is a founding member of the Boulder-Broomfield Food Security Network and board member for MASA Seed Foundation. She finds joy while outside or creating a meal with friends and family.
Naomi Honig
Founder & Principal
Three Hive Strategy
Naomi’s early career began in food and hospitality, both as a chef and in operations, tethered to the pillar of nourishing people. She spent almost a decade helping to operate and scale the Boulder-based mission-focused, high-growth restaurant group, The Kitchen, while simultaneously co-founding her own CPG company, Birch Benders, which was acquired by Sovos Brands in 2020.
Naomi is a firm believer that a business can only be successful if it supports its people. With that principle in mind, she created a People Ops function during her tenure at The Kitchen, developing all core and strategic People Ops processes while scaling the company from 75 to 800 employees in 6 states. With her passion in startup and growth businesses, she has since scaled sustainable and strategic People Ops functions in Cannabis, Consumer Goods, and venture-backed eCommerce industries. She’s worked with a full spectrum of work environments from fully remote to having an all hourly, in-person team.
Naomi is a truly collaborative leader who has touched all areas of people operations and is knowledgeable in the functional areas of payroll, benefits, and compliance. However, she is most driven in supporting strategic process development, organizational design, retention strategies, hiring, and facilitating strong executive-level communication and collaboration. Naomi holds her SPHR certification, is a Certified Practitioner of the ECHO Listening Profile, and is a facilitator of ECHO Listening’s 6-week Listening, Leadership, and Performance communication training series.
Scott Dicker
Market Insights Director
SPINS
Scott Dicker is the market insights director for SPINS, a leading wellness-focused data company and advocate for the natural products industry. With a background in nutrition, he believes in the importance of making wellness options more accessible to everyone and that demystifying data can make that happen. By delving into omnichannel, comprehensive, market-wide data, he identifies emerging trends and explores shifting consumer behavior, helping retailers and brands better understand the market and their audience. Scott has spoken at many leading industry events, including the Natural Products Expo, SupplySide and Plant Based World shows, plus many more. In addition, he has a longstanding involvement in nutrition and wellness, working as a sports nutritionist and starting multiple entrepreneurial businesses in the field.
Scott Dicker
Market Insights Director
SPINS
Scott Dicker is the market insights director for SPINS, a leading wellness-focused data company and advocate for the natural products industry. With a background in nutrition, he believes in the importance of making wellness options more accessible to everyone and that demystifying data can make that happen. By delving into omnichannel, comprehensive, market-wide data, he identifies emerging trends and explores shifting consumer behavior, helping retailers and brands better understand the market and their audience. Scott has spoken at many leading industry events, including the Natural Products Expo, SupplySide and Plant Based World shows, plus many more. In addition, he has a longstanding involvement in nutrition and wellness, working as a sports nutritionist and starting multiple entrepreneurial businesses in the field.
Judging the NEXTY Awards is no easy task, which is why New Hope Network's in-house team gets invaluable help from some of the industry's most experienced professionals in selecting the winners.
This year will be no different, thanks to a cadre of guest judges comprised of natural product retailers, industry analysts and experts in CPG product development.
Natural Products Expo West, an education and trade show that starts March 12, is the biggest event in the natural products industry, so its NEXTY Awards program is no stranger to large numbers. This year, New Hope Network received nearly 1,500 nominations across 35 categories.
From those, 154 have been selected as finalists, and 35 of those will be revealed as winners at the NEXTY Awards ceremony at 6 p.m. PDT, Thursday, March 14, at the Marquis Ballroom Center in the Marriott.
The NEXTY Awards spotlight the best of the natural products industry and recognize brands taking the lead in terms of innovation, inspiration and integrity.
For each round of judging, the judges gather to discuss, sample and debate how each product best demonstrates these attributes. These debates can get lively—particularly when trying to select a winner.
The industry knowledge our guest judges bring to the table, combined with New Hope's expertise, ensures that the products with the greatest potential for impact are awarded.
Click through the gallery to see the guest judges for this exciting Expo West 2024 edition of the NEXTY Awards.
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