Unpacking the Digital Shelf

Episodi

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  De-Siloing Your Org is Easier than You Think, with Lynsey Sweales, International Consultant & Facilitator, Founder of Cognitive Union 17.08.2026 34min

  The consumer journey is under one of the greatest transformations since, well, ecommerce. As AI and agents enable consumers to ask their individual questions, it is the challenger brands that are adapting to meet the moment and steal market share across many categories. Organizational silos are one of the greatest impediments to serving the consumer how, when, and where they want it. Lynsey Sweales, International Consultant & Facilitator, Founder of Cognitive Union, has found a solution that has transformed the operations of many brands. You all need to talk to each other. It’s the power of education and empathy, centered on the consumer, that has successfully brought silos down. Lynsey explains it all to us.
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  From Margins to Mainstream: The Rise of Marketplaces in Australia with Mark Mansour - Managing Director, Woolworths MarketPlus 11.08.2026 27min

  Marketplaces have evolved from the fringes of retail to one of its most significant growth engines. With nearly one in three Australian retailers now operating a marketplace, brands are rethinking how and where they compete. In this episode, Teresa is joined by Mark Mansour, Managing Director of Woolworths MarketPlus, to explore the rapidly changing marketplace landscape. Together, they discuss what's driving retailers to launch marketplaces, how brands should think about where to play and how to win, what strong retailer-brand partnerships look like, and how AI and agentic commerce may shape the future of marketplaces. A must-listen for brands navigating the next era of digital commerce.
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  Leadership through Change Sometimes Starts with One Word, with Jennifer Angelus, Sr. Director of Digital Shelf, Ecosystems, and Capabilities at Danone 10.08.2026 36min

  Moments of great transformation, chaos, and opportunity, as we are in now, require thoughtful and transformational leadership. Now in her 11th year at Danone, Jennifer Angelus has elevated her career from an associate manager of shopper insights to now leading the digital, agentic, and brand.com strategies as the Sr. Director of Digital Shelf, Ecosystems, and Capabilities at Danone. Jennifer graciously agreed to share with our community how she inspires cohesion, connection, and scale to serve the consumer and drive growth.
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  Plumbing the Digital Pipeline: Defining E-Commerce for Wholesale Distribution with Sarah Kirwen Director of eCommerce at Oatey 04.08.2026 32min

  Today, we are diving deep into a topic that is both incredibly massive and frequently misunderstood: the evolution of B2B digital commerce. If you ask five different people in a B2B manufacturing company to define "e-commerce," you’ll likely get five completely different answers. To some, it’s just Amazon. To others, it’s a customer portal. And to the traditional sales team, it can feel like a learning curve. Today, we are unpacking what e-commerce actually means in the complex world of wholesale distribution. Our guest, Sarah Kirwen, Director of ecommerce at Oatey, didn’t just inherit a digital strategy—she had to build the glossary, set the boundaries, and educate a legacy industry on why the digital shelf is the ultimate growth engine.
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  Curiosity is the Secret Ingredient in Your Growth Strategy, with Keith Lehman, Global Director, Digital Commerce Marketing at Colgate-Palmolive 03.08.2026 37min

  Running the global digital and insights organization at one of the world’s largest and most storied CPG companies takes a combination of data chops, marketing savvy, and collaborative leadership skills. Keith Lehman, Global Director, Digital Commerce Marketing at Colgate-Palmolive has all of that, but in addition he credits his intense curiosity for being the additional element that helps drive the processes to help his internal customers uncover the next best action for growth. Keith joins the podcast to explain how they are building the machine to power Colgate’s next era of growth.
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  Nourishing Long Term Consumer Value from Ages 1 to 101, with Catherine Hayden, Chief Marketing Officer at Kate Farms 27.07.2026 41min

  Can you imagine a CPG company with an 87% customer retention rate and a 50% subscribe and save rate on Amazon? Wouldn’t you want to know their secret? Well now you can, thanks to our guest today, Catherine Hayden, Chief Marketing Officer at Kate Farms, the #1 doctor-recommended plant-based nutrition brand. She recounts the journey that got them where they are today, and explains their tremendous investment in product quality, customer care, and medical research that drives trust and long term customer value.
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  The Leadership Mindset that Drives Growth and Innovation in Any Era, with Sha Atakhanov, Vice President of Marketing & Commerce at Boiron 20.07.2026 37min

  VP of Marketing & Commerce Sha Atakhanov has been driving growth and innovation at homepathic brand Boiron for almost 17 years. From booking some of the first ads on Amazon to being an inaugural brand running shoppable ads on Samsung TVs, , Sha oversees all the channels and media that touch the consumer, and he approaches new opportunities and tech, especially AI, with a simple rule - it has to generate revenue, save time, and save money. And have some fun while you’re at it.
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  The Latest Data on AI Adoption in Commerce, with Jack O’Leary, Director, eCommerce Strategic Insights at NIQ 13.07.2026 29min

  AI adoption in shopping is growing steadily, though demographic variations in this trend may influence where brands prioritize their investments.That’s why Nielsen IQ and the DSI teamed up on a combined report featuring consumer attitudes about AI in commerce, and brands leaders POV on how it is impacting their work and investments. Jack O’Leary, Director, eCommerce Strategic Insights at NIQ joins with the consumer numbers, and our own Lauren Livak Gilbert shares the brand data for a holistic view of the trajectory of AI in commerce.
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  The 5 C’s of Product Data with Jason Hein, Global Director B2B eCommerce Association 07.07.2026 36min

  Welcome to the very first episode of Unpacking the Digital Shelf: B2B Edition. To kick off this new series, we are joined by industry veteran Jason Hein. Jason brings over a decade of merchandising experience from McMaster-Carr and a foundational role building out Amazon Business's industrial catalog—but more importantly, he brings a fantastic sense of humor and a gift for storytelling that makes complex data actually fun to talk about. Today, he’s unpacking his 5 C’s of Product Data framework, sharing how to translate heavy technical jargon for everyday buyers, and giving us the exact tactical blueprint to build a data model that scales. Let's unpack it.
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  A Humanist Spin on Machine-to-Machine Marketing, with Jason Carmel, Global Creative Data Lead at VML 06.07.2026 30min

  The digital shelf has been joined by the agentic shelf — with AI agents no longer just tools in our marketing arsenal, they are emerging as a powerful, influential consumer segment actively shaping discovery, evaluation, and purchase decisions. In this audio version of a keynote from the Digital Shelf Summit, Jason Carmel, Global Creative Data Lead at VML, explains why enterprises need to re-think their marketing strategy to account for consumer machine agents, and how to do so while preserving authentic human connection.
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  How Cooki Haircare Turned Community Demand into National Distribution, with Jaimee Vilela, Managing Director, Cooki Haircare 30.06.2026 36min

  Many brands spend years trying to earn their place on retail shelves. They pitch buyers, fight for space and hope their products will sell once they finally get there. But what if you flipped that model? What if you built so much demand online that retailers actually came looking for you? That’s exactly what today’s guest has done. Jaimee Vilela is the Managing Director of Cooki Haircare, a fast-growing Australian haircare brand she acquired just a few years ago. At the time, the business was doing just four sales a day. Since then, Jaimee and her team have transformed Cooki into a multi-million-dollar brand powered by a passionate community of customers and a strong digital-first strategy. That demand has translated into retail momentum, with Cooki now ranged across the Go Vita network across Australia. In this episode, Jaimee shares the unconventional path from small eCommerce acquisition to national retail presence, and what it takes to build a brand that customers and retailers both want.
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  Consumers Don’t Want to Be Your Friend, and Other Truth Bombs, with Sarah Levinger, Behavior Strategist 29.06.2026 36min

  So it turns out when you survey brand marketers, and then their consumers, you all are not on the same page. But if you get on the same page, if you get past logic and really mine the emotional layer of your consumers, you will strike gold. Sarah Levinson is a behavioral strategist for D2C, B2B, for brands small and large, and she has honed survey strategies and deep data analysis to deeply understand what consumers want, and really don’t want, from your brand. That can turn your total addressable market into your immediate addressable market, and help you build the consumer relationship that meets them where they are at.
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  Make People the Center of AI Transformation, with Jason O’Toole, Head of Connected Commerce & Media at Gildan 22.06.2026 27min

  The apparel industry is super competitive, complex, and constantly in flux. No more than in how dramatically AI is transforming the industry and the way people work. Jason O’Toole, Head of Connected Commerce & Media at Gildan, has a saying that has served him throughout his experiences at brands like Spanx, Zegna, and his current role: when the game changes, you had better change with the game, and as soon as possible. He focused this sense of urgency and opportunity on what it means to the humans at the center of Gildan’s mission - the shopper. His team supercharges their digital experiences by empowering them to use AI to drive impactful outcomes. Jason explained it all to us.
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  You are the Agent of Your Own Future, with David Goodtree, CEO and Founder at Foodgraph 15.06.2026 35min

  The leadership guru James C. Maxwell said “Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.” Feels apt to this moment, doesn’t it? People are anxious about the impact AI will have on their lives and careers. The pace and intensity of the change around us is likely to continue, so it is incumbent upon each individual to find their way through - to be their own change agent. David Goodtree, CEO and Founder at Foodgraph, joins the podcast to talk through some of the best approaches to assess the opportunity and imagine your growth path.
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  Building the Right Mindset and Motivations for Successful AI in Ecommerce, with Joanna Lambadjieva, Founder and CEO of Amazing Wave 08.06.2026 39min

  As always with the three-legged stool of people, process, and technology, it’s the tech that gets all the buzz while it’s getting the other two legs right that really determine success or failure. Jo Lambadjieva, Founder and CEO of Amazing Wave and author of the AI in Ecommerce newsletter, invests all of her energy in helping ecommerce brands focus on enabling people to transform their processes using the right AI tooling for the job. She shares her advice 4 times a week with 70,000 newsletter readers and now, with all of you.
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  Inside Digital & eCommerce 2026: What Retailers & Brands Need to Know, with Teresa Sperti, Arktic Fox & Gill Smythe, Salsify 02.06.2026 37min

  In this episode, we unpack the key findings from the newly released Inside Digital & eCommerce 2026 report from Arktic Fox & Six Degrees Executive. The report is a deep dive into how Australian retailers and brand manufacturers are navigating the next era of digital commerce, drawing on insights from more than 100 senior leaders across retail, eCommerce, marketing, digital and retail media. The conversation explores how AI and agentic commerce are reshaping the digital shelf, why loyalty is becoming a bigger strategic priority, and how marketplaces, quick commerce and retail media are intensifying execution complexity for brands. We also examine the growing importance of product content and data foundations in an AI-driven discovery environment, the widening gap between ambition and capability, and where retailers and brands remain misaligned in the race to deliver better connected commerce experiences. From AI readiness and retail media investment to omnichannel execution and product data collaboration, this episode is essential listening for leaders shaping the future of retail and eCommerce in Australia. Download the full report here: https://www.arkticfox.io/inside-digital-ecommerce-2026
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  Driving Growth through Omnichannel Presence and Product Innovation, with Aaron Zagha, CMO at Newton Baby 01.06.2026 24min

  When last we met on the podcast in 2022, Aaron Zagha, CMO at Newton Baby, was selling some amazing baby mattresses through DTC. 4 years later, and a lot has changed - they’ve gone full omnichannel, expanded their product portfolio, and built a community of parents that are sticking with them, and their email list, for years. Managing all that change takes a ton of rigor, controlling the bottom line while fueling topline growth. Aaron walks us through this journey on today’s podcast.
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  Wielding the Levers of Growth at a Challenger Brand, with Matt Kreuger, SVP Digital Commerce and Marketplaces, Buffalo Games 25.05.2026 39min

  By the time he landed at his current Private Equity-led company, Matt Kreuger had 15 years under his belt building out ecommerce from scratch, growing global operations, and learning what it takes to drive growth across all different routes to the consumer. But as he says, “what was”doesn’t mean “what is”. Everything is always changing, and Matt, from his seat as SVP Digital Commerce and Marketplaces at Buffalo Games, is engineering growth with a lean and agile team and processes that are continually refined for today’s opportunities, and preparing for tomorrow’s. In addition to all the tech and the processes though, he finds more often than not that his secret weapon is empathy.
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  Parents and Carers: Driving Challenger Brand Growth Through Connection and Content, with Emily Jones, Ecommerce Channel Controller at HiPP Organic 18.05.2026 27min

  Being a challenger brand in the highly competitive baby formula category is not for the faint of heart. To the contrary, at HiPP Organic it takes a lot of heart, built from the family founders who needed a formula that their own child could tolerate. They now own 7% of the formula milk category in the UK and growing. Emily Jones, Ecommerce Channel Controller at HiPP Organic, joined the podcast to walk us through the omnichannel journey that is intensely focused on the needs of the parents and carers that they strive to connect with, wherever and however they want.
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  The 5 Key Principles of Best Practice in Retail Media with Bethanie Blanchard, Head of Strategy & Planning, Coles 360 13.05.2026 35min

  Retail media is attracting more investment than ever. Budgets are increasing. Networks are expanding. Expectations are rising. But one big question still sits underneath all of it: what actually drives performance? Because for many brands in the APAC region, retail media still feels like a black box. There are metrics. There are case studies. But there isn’t always clarity on what actually drives growth and which levers brands need to pull to shift performance. To answer that question, Coles 360 partnered with Circana to test a series of hypotheses around what truly drives retail media performance. Through the research, they identified eight potential growth drivers. Five were proven through the data and are now shaping how Coles works with suppliers across planning, scorecarding and growth. That’s exactly what today’s episode is about. Download the full Retail Media Best Practices Playbook: https://www.circana.com/perspectives/retail-media-best-practices-playbook-breaking-the-myths-and-building-the-future