Speakers

Simon became CEO of J Sainsbury plc in June 2020. He joined Sainsbury’s and the Operating Board in July 2017 as Retail & Operations Director responsible for stores, central operations and logistics. In his previous role he was Executive Vice President of Walgreens Boots Alliance and President of Boots with responsibility for commercial and retail operations across the UK and Ireland. Prior to Boots, Simon was at Marks and Spencer Group plc, where he held a number of operational and customer leadership roles. He is also the Non-Executive Chairman at the Institute of Customer Service.

Rhian joined the Operating Board in November 2020, having returned to Sainsbury’s in 2019 as Director of Fresh Food. Rhian’s previous roles at Sainsbury’s include Business Unit Director Non-Food Grocery and Head of Online Merchandising. As Food Commercial Director, Rhian is accountable for delivering the commercial performance of the Food business and Sainsbury’s brands.

Mark joined the Sainsbury’s Operating Board in June 2020 and as Chief Marketing Officer has responsibility for all aspects of Marketing across the Sainsbury’s, Argos, Tu & Habitat brands. Mark also leads the overall Nectar Loyalty Coalition, Nectar360 which is the company’s inhouse digital media agency and has accountability for all aspects of ESG in the business. Mark joined Sainsbury’s in 2012 to lead the Brand Communications team, in 2014 he landed the World War 1 Christmas advert 1914 in partnership with the Royal British Legion. Prior to joining Sainsbury’s, Mark built his digital skills leading the Priority program at O2 where he was Head of Sponsorship.

Before this, Mark led the Foster’s and John Smith’s brands at Heineken UK where he was Brand Director. Working with Adam & Eve they brought ‘Brad & Dan’ to life as part of the Foster’s Good Call campaign which went on to achieve an IPA Gold award. He began his career at Procter & Gamble UK and worked across Europe on Pringles, Crest, Tampax and Always. Mark is currently a Council Member of the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA) and a Fellow of the Marketing Society. Mark is very passionate about building greater awareness for mental health issues in the workplace.

Clodagh was appointed Retail and Digital Director in June 2020, having served as Chief Digital Officer since June 2018, when she joined the Operating Board. Clodagh is responsible for all channels across our stores and ecommerce platforms as well as the physical and digital customer experience, ensuring customers get the best integrated and seamless experience across Sainsbury’s, Argos, Tu, Sainsbury’s Bank and Nectar.

In addition to being the Operating Board sponsor for Wellbeing, she is also a member of the Sainsbury’s Bank Board and sits on its Nomination and Remuneration Committees. Prior to this, Clodagh has been Director of Online, Head of Online Trading, Merchandising & Content and Category Manager for the Meal Solutions business. She joined Sainsbury’s as Head of Strategy, following nine years at Bain & Company. Whilst there, she worked across the London, New York and Johannesburg offices in corporate, private equity and not-for-profit sectors across multiple industries.

Graham is Chief Transformation Officer, with responsibility for our end-to-end change programme across Sainsbury’s, Argos, Habitat and Tu, to deliver our strategy and future operating model. He also is accountable for our Supply Chain, Logistics & Transport Operations, and Central Business Services.

Graham joined Sainsbury’s in 2015 and has led a number of different areas of the business in that time, across commercial, operations and channels, including Fresh Food & Foodservices, Sainsbury’s Local, and Argos Republic of Ireland. Prior to Sainsbury’s, Graham worked at McKinsey & Company, primarily on strategy and transformation topics, and before that at Brunswick Group, focused on media, investor and government communications. Graham is a Non-Executive Director and member of the Risk & Audit Committee of GS1 UK.

Prior to Sainsbury’s, Graham was a leader in the EMEA Consumer practice of McKinsey & Company, focused on strategy and transformation for Retail, CPG and Leisure companies. Before that, he worked at Brunswick Group, covering media, investor and government relations, again specialising primarily in the Retail and Consumer sectors. Graham is also currently a Non-Executive Director and member of the Risk & Audit Committee of GS1 UK.

Rachel is a strategic senior business leader with over 20 years’ experience in the UK and internationally, with the last 8 years in UK grocery retail with Sainsbury’s, operating across strategy, commercial and retail operations. Prior to this I worked for 14 years in investment banking, advising clients on mergers and acquisitions, strategic initiatives, and corporate finance activity and then I had 3 years with a multi-channel, high service electronics distributor leading customer and change large scale transformation programmes globally.

Prior to being Grocery Director, Rachel has held senior roles across Sainsbury’s as Director of Customer and Change in our Retail and Digital Division, Head of Commercial Strategy and Category Manager for Impulse Category for 3 years, delivering profitable growth and developing the category’s customer-led strategy. I have led major strategic initiatives across all aspects of our business and corporate activity, including the potential Asda merger. I led the commercial strategy team to build the plans for our Win In Food and Brands that Deliver strategy, including the Argos Transformation.

Richard took up his new role in March 2022, with accountability for the Dairy, Produce, Meat, Fish & Poultry, Food for Later, Frozen, Bakery, Food to Go, Petrol, and Foodservice categories, as well as Commercial Partnerships.

Prior to this he spent 2 years at McColls as Chief Commercial Officer and was previously Managing Director of the Buying Group at the Co-op for 4 years. Richard previously worked for Sainsbury’s until 2015 in a variety of commercial roles across general merchandise and grocery.

Claire joined Sainsbury’s in Feb 2018 as Head of Quality and Innovation to lead the packaging and product development teams. During this time, she has evolved all Sainsbury’s sub-brands, developed a strategy for packaging reduction to support Net Zero, and driven innovation in key product areas such as plant based. Claire has worked in retail most of her career starting out in Safeway and spent 13 years at M&S. Whilst at M&S, she held several roles from heading up the science and innovation strategy, leading a change programme in the Central Food Technology Team and creating and driving a product health strategy across the business. Claire has also spent time working in marketing and PR and started out her career as a nutritionist in customer behavioural research. Claire has a real passion for developing healthier products and developing an approach for healthier sustainable diets.

Jon Bye is Director of Commercial Operations, which includes Formats & Design, Space, Range, Display, Price and Promotions, Trading Operations, Convenience Trading and Commercial Change. Jon has been at Sainsbury’s for 13 years and has held a variety of roles across our Trading and Retail Teams, including Zone Managing Director, Central Retail Director, and Business Unit Director. Prior to joining Sainsbury’s Jon worked for 10 years in Consulting with Accenture and Cap Gemini; he is also a Non Exec Director of the British Retail Consortium.

Ruth joined Sainsbury's in 2010 and since then has undertaken roles in Brand Communications, CR&M & Loyalty, Sponsorship and Strategy. In Jan 2020 she became the Sainsbury's Net Zero Programme Manager where she supported the launch of Sainsbury's renewed environmental sustainability strategy and led the ongoing governance and delivery of the plan. Ruth was appointed Group Head of Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability in November 2020 and has accountability for the overall strategy, governance, and engagement of our Plan for Better commitments. Her team provides expertise on health, environmental and social sustainability and also own the strategy for Sainsbury's community and partnership activity including Comic Relief, Royal British Legion, and local community activation.

Kate has spent 25 years in food retail and has also spent time in manufacturing in the late 1990’s. The majority of her career has been with Marks & Spencer where she started as a Food Technology graduate in 1998. She joined Sainsbury’s in April 2020 as Head of Technical – Fresh Foods and was appointed Director of Technical in November 2020. Kate has a broad experience across the food industry. She is passionate about the food industry and the people who work in it. She lives in London with her two children Teddy and Beatrix.

Meinir joined Sainsbury’s in 2019 as Head of Supply Chain Fresh Foods before moving into Head of Supply Chain and Logistics Network Planning. She was recently announced as Director of Supply Chain to accelerate the focus on product availability in the most efficient and effective way along with delivering the most ambitious, modernisation programme in this area of the business for many years. Previously, Meinir spent over twenty years with Coca-Cola European Partners where she successfully undertook roles across Europe in Supply Chain Strategy, Demand, Supply Planning and Customer Logistics. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family, running, reading, and supporting the Royal National Lifeboat Institute.

Having originally qualified as a chartered accountant with PwC, Sam moved to Sainsbury’s in 2008. He held multiple roles across the commercial function, including in ranging, category planning and buying. Becoming Category Director for Home and Personal Care in 2014, Sam led the thinking and implementation of Sainsbury’s value simplicity strategy as well as high growth and transformation into new missions such as Beauty. Sam became Director of Grocery in 2019, leading that division through the pandemic and delivering market leading performance through implementing the Win in Food plan. He took up his current role leading the Nectar business in February 2022.

Chris is the Sales Director for IGD and has spent over 20 years working in the Food, Drink and Consumer Goods market research industry. He has worked with retailers, manufacturers, trade bodies and government, and is familiar with Qual, Quant, EPoS and Panel data. Chris also enjoys helping brands better understand how to reach new shoppers and occasions. Away from work, you’ll find Chris running at the weekend (slowly, but with enthusiasm) and attempting to grow things in his garden, sometimes with success.

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.

Rhian joined IGD at the start of 2015. She leads our ShopperVista research as well as managing bespoke research projects, with a focus on food-to-go research. An expert in both qualitative and quantitative research techniques.

Prior to working for IGD she managed the Customer Insight Team at B&Q.