Beyond The Shelf

Dave’s guest this week is one of the most sought-after leaders in the E-Commerce and Retail Media spaces: Sam Gagliardi.  Sam’s 20-plus year career has included senior roles with both leading brands including Colgate-Palmolive, J&J and Barilla, as well as with SaaS enterprises Reckitt and, most recently, Circana - making him a veteran on both sides of the aisle.  Sam shares what originally got him excited about e-commerce (3:49), the power of having effective PDPs (10:00), why it’s more important than ever to connect with shoppers as early as possible (16:20), how both brands and service providers should navigate the process of selecting new partners (28:32) and how coaching hockey bears a lot in common with doing business (35:52).Connect with Sam: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samgagliardi/Learn more about ItsRapid: https://itsrapid.ai/ Theme music: "Happy" by Mixaud - https://mixaund.bandcamp.comProducers: Sean Leviashvili, Jake Musiker

We’re thrilled to welcome Bryan Gildenberg back to the show.  Bryan was the very first guest on Beyond the Shelf, back in August 2023.  It’s amazing how much the retail landscape has changed in such a short period of time!Bryan is currently keeping busy as Managing Director of Retail Cities, a global retail data and insights firm, primarily focused on fast growth industries and markets.  He balances this with his continuing role as Founder and CEO of Confluencer Commerce, helping retailers and their partners navigate the intersection of retail, media and content. Bryan shares his thoughts on achieving $10T of retail growth in the coming years (4:02), how to put the “retail” back in retail media (8:53), why big retailers will have a major advantage over smaller competitors for the foreseeable future (10:31), why AI is already overpromising and underdelivering (21:59), and why the definition of “omnichannel” will change in 2025 (31:55).Connect with Bryan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryan-gildenberg-56a6b0/Follow Retail Cities: https://www.linkedin.com/company/retailcities/ Learn more about ItsRapid: https://itsrapid.ai/ Theme music: "Happy" by Mixaud - https://mixaund.bandcamp.comProducer: Jake Musiker

Dave’s guest this week is Sreenath Reddy, Founder of Intentwise. Intentwise provides unified, comprehensive, and reliable analytics and advertising applications for Amazon and Walmart.Sreenath provides overviews of machine learning (8:32) and Intentwise (11:21), and how they’re solving the problem of connecting scattered sources of data to help customers reach profitability faster (14:52).  He also shares his journey as an entrepreneur (22:01). Connect with Sreenath: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sreenathkreddy/ Learn more about ItsRapid: https://itsrapid.ai/ Theme music: "Happy" by Mixaud - https://mixaund.bandcamp.comProducer: Jake Musiker

Happy New Year!  We kick off 2025 with Neha Shah, Senior Manager, Digital Commerce and Omnichannel Shopper Marketing at The Campbell’s Company.  Neha’s nearly two-decade career has included senior eCommerce positions at Johnson & Johnson and Kenvue.  In her new role, she is spearheading omnichannel efforts across the Campbell’s portfolio of brands.     Neha shares her experiences in the early days of eCommerce (7:47), the evolution of the consumer journey in recent years (10:58), navigating Amazon AVN negotiations (13:12), how Campbell’s is pioneering the next wave of what’s happening in the omni and retail media spaces (19:36), and her favorite books on personal and professional development (22:41). Note: all views expressed in this episode are Neha's personal POV.Connect with Neha: https://www.linkedin.com/in/msnehashah/Learn more about ItsRapid: https://itsrapid.ai/ Theme music: "Happy" by Mixaud - https://mixaund.bandcamp.comProducer: Jake Musiker

We’re closing out 2024 with a bang!  This week’s guest is Dawn Powell, Manager of Ecommerce at Kids2.  Kids2 is a leading manufacturer of products and solutions for early stage parents.  Baby Einstein, Brightstarts and SwaddleMe are but a few of brands under the Kids2 umbrella that are household names for parents.Recently, Dawn has spearheaded the successful automation of Kids2’s sell sheet processes, which she estimates has saved up to 50,000 hours of manual labor among her team.  She’s achieved this by working closely with partners like It’sRapid and Salsify.  Details of these partnerships, such as Kids2’s use cases for sell sheets (5:39), why they chose to work with It’sRapid (7:44), how Dawn was able to secure buy-in across the organization (10:27), and how It’sRapid is implemented across the Kids2 portfolio (15:40) are all discussed here.Connect with Dawn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dawnppowell/ Take advantage of a special offer from It'sRapid and get a free image, video or banner ad by emailing sales@itsrapid.io with code "BEYOND2024"Learn more about ItsRapid: https://itsrapid.ai/ Theme music: "Happy" by Mixaud - https://mixaund.bandcamp.comProducer: Jake Musiker

Dave catches up with Jennifer Angelus, Director, Digital Shelf + Capabilities at Danone.  Jennifer has been with Danone for nearly a decade across a multitude of roles, including Brand Strategy, Trade Marketing and Category Insights, before shifting to the Digital Shelf side of the business in 2021, where she leads her “E-MAZING” team of ecommerce experts. Topics discussed include: Jennifer’s advice for other leaders looking to change from one specialty to another (5:46), the role that content plays in a digital strategy (11:27), balancing strategy between innovation and evergreen products (13:50), the importance of forming meaningful connections with your team (17:29) and an overview of the Danone portfolio (19:22).Connect with Jennifer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferangelus/ Take advantage of a special offer from It'sRapid and get a free image, video or banner ad by emailing sales@itsrapid.io with code "BEYOND2024"Learn more about ItsRapid: https://itsrapid.ai/ Theme music: "Happy" by Mixaud - https://mixaund.bandcamp.comProducer: Jake Musiker

Dave’s guest this week is Piyush Chaudhari, Chief Executive Officer at Salsify.  Piyush joined Salsify this past June after an illustrious career in leadership at prestigious firms including SRS & Co, where was CEO, and IRI, where he was President, Americas and Global Strategy.    Piyush shares the three things changing the retail landscape today (8:02), his experience at Salsify so far (10:03), an overview of the Salsify/It’sRapid partnership (14:42), his POV on retail media (19:58), thoughts on how the new administration will impact Saas and Tech, and how AI will impact content creation (26:22). Connect with Piyush: https://www.linkedin.com/in/piyush-chaudhari-62b29a13/ Follow Salsify: https://www.linkedin.com/company/salsify Take advantage of a special offer from It'sRapid and get a free image, video or banner ad by emailing sales@itsrapid.io with code "BEYOND2024"Learn more about ItsRapid: https://itsrapid.ai/ Theme music: "Happy" by Mixaud - https://mixaund.bandcamp.comProducer: Jake Musiker

Dave speaks with Gireesh Sahukar, Vice President - Digital at Dawn Foods Global, a global leader in manufacturing and distributing finished baked goods and ingredients.  Gireesh is a founding member of Dawn’s Digital Innovation Hub, transforming the business’s digital strategy and capabilities.  Gireesh shares what it’s like to wear many hats in a startup environment (5:32), an overview of Dawn Foods (9:14), the company processes that used to be manual but are now self-service (15:28), the insights they wouldn’t be able to uncover without a tech stack (22:28), and why crop yields are so important to their bottom line (27:26)Connect with Gireesh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sahukar/ Take advantage of a special offer from It'sRapid and get a free image, video or banner ad by emailing sales@itsrapid.io with code "BEYOND2024"Learn more about ItsRapid: https://itsrapid.ai/ Theme music: "Happy" by Mixaud - https://mixaund.bandcamp.comProducer: Jake Musiker

Beyond the Shelf proudly introduces the first episode in our “Client Spotlight” series.  In these episodes, we’ll speak with prominent ItsRapid clients about our partnerships - what are their needs, how can ItsRapid fill in the gaps, and what are their specific use cases?  These conversations will peel back the curtain for our listeners, and give you more detail into what a partnership with ItsRapid could mean for your business.This week, Dave speaks with The Wine Group’s Andrew Groom and Jack Slattery.  Andrew serves as TWG’s Sr. Director of Digital Marketing and Ecommerce, while Andrew is Director, Ecommerce and Digital Marketing.They share an overview of the wine ecommerce market (3:45) and The Wine Group’s success in the space (11:23), before diving deep into their partnership with ItsRapid: specific use cases (19:02), ease of adoption (22:45) the wins they’ve already had and how they plan to utilize ItsRapid moving forward (27:41). Connect with Andrew: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewgroom/ Connect with Jack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackslattery1/Follow The Wine Group: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thewinegroup Take advantage of a special offer from It'sRapid and get a free image, video or banner ad by emailing sales@itsrapid.io with code "BEYOND2024"Learn more about ItsRapid: https://itsrapid.ai/ Theme music: "Happy" by Mixaud - https://mixaund.bandcamp.comProducer: Jake Musiker

Dave kicks off November with Claudia Virgilio, Global Vice President of Strategic Partnerships & Growth at Skai (formerly Kenshoo), a leading omnichannel platform for marketing intelligence and activation.  Claudia has been at Skai for over 15 years, initially heading up sales efforts to partner with clients including Expedia, Hilton, Walmart, Shutterfly, HP and more.  She also led the agency team globally, and was instrumental in developing Skai’s agency solutions and partnerships. You’ll learn what it’s like to partner with major retailers (4:09)  takeaways from Grocery Shop 2024 (7:22), Media Planning 101 from a paid perspective (10:16), why online brand discovery is so difficult (17:28), and what’s on the horizon for the space going forward (19:33). Connect with Claudia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claudiavirgilio/ Learn more about Skai: https://skai.io/ Take advantage of a special offer from It'sRapid and get a free image, video or banner ad by emailing sales@itsrapid.io with code "BEYOND2024"Learn more about ItsRapid: https://itsrapid.ai/Theme music: "Happy" by Mixaud - https://mixaund.bandcamp.comProducer: Jake Musiker