Speakers

Adele Balmforth, Proposition Director, Co-op

Adele Balmforth

Proposition Director, Co-op

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Adele has led the Ambient Commercial Buying team since September 2019 having previously headed up the Fresh Commercial Buying team.

Adele spent the early part of her career in commercial buying roles across a number of retailers, covering numerous categories before joining the Coop. The ambition within the team is to continue to deliver compelling, market leading propositions across all channels underpinned by great supplier collaboration.

Sinead Bell, Commercial Director of Food, Co-op

Sinead Bell

Commercial Director of Food,
Co-op

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Sinead is the Commercial Director of Co-op Food, whose commercial teams are responsible for developing and leading the plans that underpin the commercial strategy of Co-op and Nisa Food businesses.

She is an experienced commercial leader with a career spanning Data Sciences, Market Strategy & Planning, Sales roles in Retail & Foodservice as well as having been Trading Director roles at Tesco before joining Co-op in 2019 to lead the Chilled Commercial team.

Sinead is passionate about driving Inclusion and Diversity internally and externally so that people feel equal, supported, and valued, able to reach their full potential and to be comfortable being their true selves in the company of others.

She is at her happiest collaborating upon courageous end to end strategies and building relationships which engage people in meaningful ways and drive sustainable value. A culture changer, and curious optimist, she is keen to step change how we do business.

In her spare time Sinead will be seen chasing her two dogs across a park (unsuccessful at recall!) and planning her next travels with her husband.

Chris Conway, Director of E-Commerce, Co-op

Chris Conway

Director of E-Commerce, Co-op

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Chris has led the Food Digital team at Coop for 5 years after heading up online at Morrisons, and spending 13 years at Asda, most recently as Senior Director for Ecommerce.

At Coop Chris has built their new same day online convenience business from scratch and also pioneered innovations such as Robot deliveries, taxi trials and using digital technology to make lives easier for customers and colleagues.

Nick Cornwell, Head of Supply Chain, Co-op

Nick Cornwell

Head of Supply Chain, Co-op

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Nick is Co-op’s Head of Supply Chain and has overall accountability for the forecasting and replenishment of depots and stores across the Co-op, FRTS, Franchise and NISA estates based on a variety of agreed service models.

Nick has 30 year’s food retail experiences at Co-op spanning numerous roles in stores, retail operations, supply chain, commercial trading and for the last 4years as Head of Food Technical. Returning to supply chain in January 2023, Nick sits as part of Derek Furnival’s Logistics & Supply Chain leadership team, collectively accountable for the ‘move’ element of our end to end Buy, Move, Sell model.

The priority for supply chain this year is to optimise SAP now the rollout is largely complete so that efficiencies and benefits of this huge investment can fully realised for the benefit Co-op and our supply base. When not at work Nick spends most of his time outdoors on the bike, playing golf, watching his lads play rugby and walking the dogs!

Kate Graham, Operations Director of Co-op Food, Co-op

Kate Graham

Operations Director of Co-op Food, Co-op

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Kate is currently Operations Director at Co-op Food, with responsibility for all Coop Food stores nationally & the Operational support centre covering Scotland, England, Northern Ireland, Wales and Isle of Mann and Isle of White.

Kate has spent her career in retail with a range of leadership positions including, Store manager, Operations Manager, Regional Manager, Divisional Managing Director and currently, Operations Director

Whilst Kate now has a UK-wide remit as Operations Director for Co-op Food, she’s based in Scotland and lives in Glasgow with her family, where she enjoys Walking, Running and spending time with her children, family and friends.

Matt Hood, Managing Director of Co-op Food, Co-op

Matt Hood

Managing Director of Co-op Food, Co-op

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Matt is the Managing Director of Co-op Food, his commercial teams are responsible for developing and leading the plans that underpin the commercial strategy of Co-op and Nisa Food businesses, his function also includes aspects of the overall commercial offer such as technical, agriculture, E commerce and the commercial transformation programme.

He has been with the Co-op for over 9 years and has played a leading role in developing, implementing and executing the strategy which has helped transform the performance of the business.

He joined the Co-op in 2013 as part of a new leadership team tasked with rescuing and rebuilding the business. In the past few years, Matt has led his team through the unexpected challenges and impacts of Covid, Brexit and the availability challenges as well crucially Co Ops ongoing strategic vision to be the UK’s leading convenience retailer while also championing a better way of doing business.

He and his team continue to adapt to trading in an increasingly multi-channel business, with wholesale and ecommerce becoming a key part of how Coop deal with their suppliers as well as interact with customers. He’s also developed a strategy that challenges his teams to work smarter, carefully considering what role each of our category plays to make sure we invest our efforts and capital in line with customer insight.

Outside of work, Matt is a big sponsor and advocate or our inclusion and mental health strategies. He also enjoys spending time with his young family, travelling, playing and following football and keeping fit.

Kenyatte Nelson, Chief Membership & Customer Officer, Co-op

Kenyatte Nelson

Chief Membership & Customer Officer, Co-op

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As Co-op Chief Membership & Customer Officer, Kenyatte is responsible for driving the growth agenda, pan Co-op, via the creation and communication of compelling member and customer propositions that deliver profitable membership growth.

He is responsible for Marketing & Communications, Membership & CRM and Co-op Live (the UK’s largest live music venue set to open later this year).

Prior to joining Co-op, Kenyatte spent time at NBrown, Missguided and The Very Group where he held Exec and Operating Board roles as Chief Marketing and Customer Officer.

Before moving to the UK, he spent 16 years at Procter & Gamble in various general management roles across the Americas and EMEA.

Martin Rogers, Director of Partnership Development, Co-op

Martin Rogers

Director of Partnership Development, Co-op

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Before Martin’s recent move to Partnership Development, he has lead the New Channels team in Co-op for the last five years, which has built and developed Co-op Franchise and our retail on demand businesses.

In parallel, he has also lead the strategy of Nisa for the last two years, including implementing our Fresh Rewards rebate solution and the wider transformation portfolio.

Prior to this, Martin lead our central operations team in Food, and lead IGD award winning customer service and workforce management programmes in Co-op. Before joining Co-op’s graduate scheme in 2005, Martin worked in investment banking for UBS Warburg in Frankfurt and London, and did Voluntary Service Overseas in China.

Nicola Knight, Insight Manager, IGD

Nicola Knight

Insight Manager, IGD

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Nicola specialises in delivering insight and sector trends for Food-to-go and Eating out, most recently focusing on how the pandemic has shifted the boundaries between food and drink consumed in and out of home.

She is a marketer with over 20 years’ experience in the UK foodservice sector, and has worked with food manufacturers, wholesalers and operators in brand management, marketing and insight roles.

James Walton, Chief Economist, IGD

James Walton

Chief Economist, IGD

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James’ role at IGD is to help businesses anticipate and cope with strategic events, including: economic pressures, geo-political change, social developments and environmental stress.

James has worked with clients across the entire grocery industry as well as with non-industry groups such as government departments, financial businesses and NGOs. James is well known for speaking at both UK and international events and provides interviews for TV, radio and the press.

He also creates original reports and articles for IGD. James joined IGD in April 1999 and has served in several roles, becoming Chief Economist in 2004. Prior to joining IGD, he worked for Hillsdown Holdings, Northern Foods and Rank-Xerox.

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