We would like to congratulate the Progressive Grocer 2021 Top Women in Grocery Award winners at PDL: Natalie Dupill, Pallavi Jain, Andjela Petrovic, Jami Jaworski, and Venita James! 

Progressive Grocer, the number one grocery media brand, honors peer-nominated women who demonstrate excellence in grocery achievement in both retail and supply.    

Here are some highlights of these awardees’ peer nominations: 

Natalie Dupill  

• In the ecommerce and omnichannel fields, Natalie created and introduced our new “Connected Customer” strategy, allowing all of the Ahold Delhaize USA local brands, supply chain, Corporate support and Peapod Digital Labs to leverage PDL’s offerings to deliver on what the customer wants most, however and wherever they shop. She also created and deployed an acceleration project for Digital and e-commerce, resulting in a rapid installation of over 400 additional Click + Collect locations being added to the Ahold Delhaize USA local brands in under a year and on budget. 

• In addition, she developed “Associate Feedback Forums”, which involved conducting listening sessions to seek feedback, input, and ideas from employees. Upon compiling and synthesizing the results, Natalie helped senior management shape an action plan to address concerns and create interventions that addressed the feedback from associates. The PDL Annual Engagement Survey taken in October of 2020 indicated that PDL had improved in every category of the survey and reached the total engagement index score of 86%. 

Andjela Petrovic  

• Within PDL, Andjela created omnichannel commercial training materials and held over 20 in-person trainings for more than 400 associates last year. She also conducted two large competitive assessments that helped each local Ahold Delhaize USA brand analyze their business relative to their competition. Finally, she spearheaded and produced an on-demand training program called Omnichannel On-Demand, which is designed as a resource for each of the local brands of Ahold Delhaize USA to educate their associates about omnichannel and drive a better delivery of the omnichannel experience to customers. 

• Externally, Andjela fully executed a gift bags project from beginning to end, which enabled the brands to provide over 100,000 customers with a gift bags as part of their Click & Collect order (a program that was funded by CPG partners). She also helped create WebEx materials to share with the vendor community—these materials outlined the omnichannel strategy and vendor partner expectations, all of which will ultimately lead to better omnichannel commercial planning & customer experience. 

Pallavi Jain  

• Pallavi played a lead role in the assessment of what needed to be prioritized and deprioritized to meet the changing customer need and macro landscape. From April 2020 onward, Pallavi led her team through a string of experience enhancement launches for the brands, which added great value to their customer’s lives in an unprecedented time. To name a few among 70+ enhancements her team helped the brands deliver: chatbots, live chat, delivery tracking, preferential delivery, enhanced product substitutions, associate pickup notifications, self-service lockers, same-day delivery, and enabling EBT/SNAP online. 

• These initiatives have led to a double-digit customer satisfaction index increase among customers of the brands PDL serves and led to significant positive movements in several other KPIs, such as site conversion, basket size, customer retention, etc. 

Jami Jaworski  

• Jami created comprehensive change management plan that supported improved adoption of the Master Data Management tool at Stop & Shop, Giant Food, and GIANT from a 9% usage to an 80% adoption rate. 

• Jami created activities such as Coffee Talks, Seminars, and Readers with Leaders to connect Business Resource Group (BRG) associates and leaders on a variety of topics to grow both personally and professionally. Her Generations BRG was selected as the BRG of the year for 2020. 

• Jami accomplished all this while being a new mom to Aurelia, who accompanied Jami on her work throughout 2020. 

Venita James  

• When Covid-19 emerged, Venita was critical in helping the brands to navigate shifting consumer behaviors, bringing in relevant items and data/research from across the industry. She developed six key themes that resonate across categories and events (tech, value, less trips, inspire at home, optimism, wellness). With these themes, she partners with third party experts and researches aesthetics, data, and shopping patterns to maximize items’ effectiveness. 

• As the pandemic transpired, Venita adjusted and built key themes to address shifting consumer behaviors and partnered closely with General Merchandise Category Managers to lean into new items. 

• Venita introduced the 60/30/10 product pyramid approach, which puts a strategic approach to assortment. She also partnered with PDL’s Sourcing Manager to establish and communicate improved GM/Seasonal processes which reduced virtual meetings from 3 days to 4 hours, reducing lead time by 30 days. 

These women will be featured in the June edition of Progressive Grocer and are invited to attend a gala celebration during Grocery Industry Week in November. We are so proud of their achievements and grateful to have them as leaders within Peapod Digital Labs!