With technology innovations rapidly expanding, industry leaders are being charged with finding unique and engaging ways to integrate these advancements to streamline operations and create more efficient practices within the industry.
RIS News’ seventh annual look at the top women in retail technology celebrates female technologists innovating how consumers and employees interact with technology, providing dynamic solutions to enhance our daily lives. The women honored this year are building phenomenal teams transforming the retail experience.
Read about their latest retail technology projects, which were nominated by their peers and partners, along with learning where they feel the industry is going, womens’ role within it, and what they are up to outside of their technological achievements.
Women’s Role Within the Industry
Short was a store manager and district director when there were limited leadership opportunities for women within the industry, and she is inspired by how things are changing. “Many women felt pressure to lead as their male counterparts back then, and I am inspired now by how many women pursue leadership roles today and show up as their authentic selves.”
Biggest Accomplishment
Fedrizzi has played critical roles for multinational corporations such as Red Bull, Coca-Cola, Wild Forks, and now, Giadzy. Before joining Giadzy, Fedrizzi led a technology-driven strategy to facilitate the expansion of an e-commerce enterprise, which yielded a 200% increase in productivity, enhanced operational precision, and reduced labor expenses. She was also responsible for guiding the development of an in-house customized order management system, which increased their operations' efficiencies. Now, Fedrizzi is bringing that expertise to Giadzy and helping them use technology to strengthen the customer experience. "We are building the foundation of what we see as a flawlessly personalized customer experience with the best AI players in the market," says Fedrizzi.
Long-Term Goals
"My long-term goal is to deliver an impactful and unique experience to each and every user with every interaction they have on our platform," says Fedrizzi. She strongly emphasizes search engine optimization to provide consumers access to one-click shopping and other streamlined approaches. The customer's needs always come first, allowing her to use predictive data and advanced personalization engines to develop a distinctive online browsing experience that will set Giadzy apart.
Greatest Tech Impact
AI integration has revolutionized the industry with its ability to anticipate customer needs and stream personalized consumer experiences. "This transformative approach enables us to bring the advantages of a traditional retail experience into the online world while offering a more convenient and efficient means of shopping," says Fedrizzi. One of the critical elements of her job is to analyze customer data to gain valuable insights into consumer trends, ensuring the solutions Giadzy invests in are tailored to their customer's needs.
Head of Digital Experience & Performance
Giadzy
1 year with Giadzy;
1 in current role
Giulia
Women’s Role Within the Industry
Fedrizzi tells RIS that women are breaking through barriers within the retail sector, assuming leadership roles in various areas, and challenging the industry to recognize the valuable skills and insights women bring. “There are still a lot of challenges — such as limited representation in senior leadership positions and work-life balance issues. However, I see a positive shift towards greater inclusion, representation, and opportunities for women in the retail sector,” said Fedrizzi.
Favorite Way to Unwind
Fedrizzi enjoys traveling and experiencing the world's most remote and rustic corners. No matter where she goes, she always wants to experience the latest tech innovations and bring inspiration back to her current work and beyond. "The human mind is incredibly creative, and there are a lot of ingenious solutions people have come up with. But as technology evolves, the gap between the haves and have-nots will widen. It's up to us to think of ways to change this."
Memorable Mentor
Ana Carolina, founder, and retail director of West Carolina, has been Fedrizzi's incredible mentor and friend for over a decade. "Being a young woman in a male-dominated industry can be tough and intimidating. But having Ana Carolina right by my side has given me the confidence to know that despite the extra hurdles we sometimes face as women, we're more than capable of breaking into spaces that were once off-limits to us."
Quick Fact
She has held strategic positions crucial in advancing business scalability in various domains such as e-commerce, last-mile delivery, front and back end, and strategy and operations within the consumer-packaged goods, retail, and food and beverage sectors.
READ ON to learn why these incredible leaders deserve recognition for their ability to reimagine how the retail industry operates and communicates.
Fedrizzi
Biggest Accomplishment
With her experience driving results through innovation in partnership with Zebra Technologies, Short led the development of tools that helped employees have a greater work-life balance through greater scheduling controls like the ability to pick up open shifts and swap ships via a mobile device. She also implemented changes to the store communication process through efficiencies for the store support and leadership teams. “The result: store teams spend more time providing the best possible customer experience and less time on tasks,” says Short.
Long-Term Goals
During her 35-year career with SEG, Short has held numerous positions of increasing responsibility, including serving as a store director, district manager, and, most recently, senior director of productivity and performance management. Throughout her career, she has always invested in various technologies to improve the customer experience, ensuring their e-commerce platform provides consumers with the necessary products. She is also looking to new technologies, including robotics, to strengthen the associate experience, improving store operations and efficiencies. “With the growth of e-commerce, it is imperative that the items customers select at home are available in stores,” Short added. She is dedicated to improving the customer experience, making it easier to check out seamlessly or pre-order products while also improving the experience for store employees through improved communication and resources that allow them to engage in real-time.
Greatest Tech Impact
Food waste is a huge issue that customers expect SEG to reduce, and Short is emphasizing new technology that can help mitigate the problem. “SEG has already made substantial improvements through new applications that monitor sell-by dates to ensure customers receive only fresh products and stores sell through items before becoming waste and technology that can predict ordering needs and production needs, thus creating a great fresh in stock experience without creating unnecessary waste,” said Short.
Vice President of Workforce Strategies
Southeastern Grocers Inc. (parent company of Winn-Dixie, Fresco y Más, and Harveys Supermarket stores)
35 years with Southeastern Grocers;
5 in current role
Short
PRESENTED BY
By: Jennifer Guhl, Jamie Grill-Goodman, and Maia Jenkins
Jennifer
Biggest Accomplishment
Kogan is known for her ability to develop high-growth concepts for leading brands like Hewlett-Packard, Chevron, Elizabeth Arden, and Kellogg’s, helping scale initiatives that drive sales and enhance the consumer experience. Recently, Kogan led Vintage Wine’s podium implementation, empowering their wine estate tasting room teams with tools to continue to engage with guests after their visit. “This digital tool enabled our associates to work virtually during COVID and today remains the lead customer review tool in providing feedback to our associates and future guests,” said Kogan.
Long-Term Goals
Kogan hopes to combine e-commerce mitigation with brand engagement to provide a unique experience for Vintage Wine’s customers. “We are working on our e-commerce migration which will become our marketplace, digital asset and product information manager, wholesale publisher, and transactional site serving many customers with one goal — to excite and delight with our brand stories,” said Kogan.
Greatest Tech Impact
Frictionless payment methods are something Kogan hopes she can help find a solution to. “When payments become universally seamless, this will be transformative for all cohorts,” Kogan said.
Chief Growth & Experience Officer
Vintage Wine Estates
6 years with Vintage Wine Estates;
1 in current role
Jessica
Kogan
Women’s Role Within the Industry
“When I started less than 20 years ago, there were a handful of women in the C-suite, and today, I see change, but I can’t wait for the day I walk into a boardroom and 50% of the executives are women,” said Kogan.
Favorite Way to Unwind
If she weren’t working for Vintage Wines, you would find Kogan perfecting her green thumb in her bountiful garden. “It is my obsession!”
Memorable Mentor
Kogan’s boss, Terry Wheatley, is the first female president of a publicly traded adult beverage company, and this has motivated her to feel that anything is within reach. She said she is, “…an inspirational leader, an incredible coach, and the ultimate velvet hammer!”
Biggest Accomplishment
Sharma capitalized on the fact that consumers were at home due to the pandemic, completing a platform modernization and migration to the cloud in the Spring of 2020. This allowed them to scale as consumers were turning to Lowe’s to assist them with home projects during their time at home during the pandemic. “With our modernized platform and shift to the cloud, Lowe’s was able to meet our customers' needs by releasing customer-focused updates to the site faster and more frequently, and offering an online experience free of outages, even during record traffic periods,” said Sharma.
Long-Term Goals
Lowe’s relies on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) data to better understand their customer’s home improvement needs and aspirations, no matter how they choose to shop. This will help them to develop a customized consumer experience to accompany them through their home improvement journey. “Accordingly, we are using AI and ML to build continuous, contextual shopping experiences that are also stable, scalable, and beautiful. AI and ML further Lowe’s ability to inspire our customers, help them make decisions, save them time, and remove friction from their home improvement journey,” said Sharma.
Greatest Tech Impact
Sharma hopes to help Lowe's develop a single end-to-end spatial commerce experience that understands the customer's specific space and needs, allowing them to do everything from receiving estimates to completing a project. "We're looking to build a future that leverages the rise of emerging technologies like LiDAR, computer vision, AI, and mixed reality hardware: technologies that will not only sense and understand your home's space but will also put all of that data into your hands in practical ways whenever you need it, wherever you are," said Sharma.
SVP, Digital Commerce & Omni-Channel Technology
Lowe’s Companies, Inc.
6 years with Lowe’s;
6 in current role
Neelima
Sharma
Confidence Builder
Sharma noted, “I’ve found that being adaptable, staying abreast of social and technology trends, having a growth mindset, and being absolutely focused on the voice of the customer creates confidence and makes you resilient to the inevitable changes in retail technology.”
Goals Before Retirement
“When building high-performing teams, customer experiences, and growing businesses culminate together, magic happens,” said Sharma. “I want to surprise myself with what my organization can accomplish now that we are accountable for all three of those elements.”
Quick Fact
Before joining Lowe’s, Sharma led Staples’ $8 billion B2B e-commerce business.
Quick Fact
She feels it is a gift to be part of creating “first” digital experiences for many partners, vendors, and consumers.
Biggest Accomplishment
Bhatia is consistently blown away by the team they have assembled at Dollar General, which supports 19,000 stores, more than 30 distribution centers, and corporate systems within Dollar General. They also have mobilized a robust technology strategy that is helping them drive the business forward in new and innovative ways. "Merely pursuing technology for technology's sake is not effective; establishing genuine partnerships with the business and collaboratively building the future vision is essential for success," said Bhatia.
Long-Term Goals
Dollar General strongly emphasizes self-checkout technology, having launched a pilot of entirely self-checkout stores in 2022. “Self-checkout technology will drive greater efficiencies for Dollar General’s retail associates and leaders and give our customers a faster checkout experience,” said Bhatia. With her over 20 years of experience guiding solution delivery and transformational strategic initiatives, Bhatia’s team is focusing on keeping up with customer demands through the implementation of new tools and technology to serve its customer base better.
Greatest Tech Impact
Bhatia believes synergies amongst various technologies will drive the most significant impact, improving the customer and associates' experience. "Leveraging technology to drive transformative changes in the retail industry is something I am deeply passionate about, and I strive to make a tangible impact through every decision and action our team undertakes," said Bhatia. The key is always to explore possible innovations that will continue to bring enhanced value to the customer and employee experience.
Senior Vice President IT Applications and Base Engineering
Dollar General Corporation
1 year with Dollar General;
1 in current role
Shweta
Bhatia
Women’s Role within the Industry
With experience working with leading companies like Walmart and Kohl’s, Bhatia feels fortunate
to have worked for companies that prioritize diversity and have helped to provide mentors
and guidance throughout her career. “The representation of women in leadership roles has increased, which is beneficial for younger women as they navigate their careers,” said Bhatia.
2023
RIS congratulates all the women who made this year’s list.
FUN FACTS
FUN FACTS
Favorite Way to Unwind
Short loves exploring the world, finding beauty wherever she goes, from the routine to the extraordinary. “I believe in not putting off till tomorrow what you can do today!”
Building Confidence
“Resiliency comes with perspective, knowing mistakes need to be made to grow, and tomorrow is always a new day with new possibilities,” said Short.
Quick Fact
Short began her career as a customer service clerk at Winn-Dixie, giving her a more robust understanding of what it takes to deliver operational excellence in SEG stores.
FUN FACTS
FUN FACTS
Staying Connected
Even though she uses technology, she is the type of person that prefers informal hallway chats and loves being in person with her coworkers. She is also one for planning conversations and various get-togethers. “I set up more formal chats, one-on-ones, lunches and dinners, and enjoy traveling to where the associates are (e.g. India or Seattle),” said Sharma.
FUN FACTS
Memorable Mentor
To start her career, having a relatable role model was something she constantly struggled with. That all changed when one of her previous employers hired a female COO to oversee technology. “Interacting with her ignited a passion within me to aspire to leadership, advance my career, and support others in their journey,” said Bhatia.
Confidence Builder
For those looking to advance within technology, Bhatia recommends embracing resiliency and not being afraid to fail. “Pursuing ambitious goals often involves setbacks, but actively engaging in the process, reflecting on failures, and bouncing back from them provide valuable opportunities for personal growth.”
Quick Fact
Bhatia earned her MBA in IT from Amity University.
FUN FACTS
Biggest Accomplishment
With over 35 years of experience working with brands like Toys"R"Us and Walmart, Gray held critical leadership roles within Macy’s in Supply Chain, Pricing and Inventory, IT Operations, Merchant, and Corporate Technology Systems. She recently led the creation of the technology business management office, which focuses on three key verticals, vendor management, portfolio management, and the product-driven agile model. Utilizing cloud technology, common service, and data science, Gray has modernized the company’s markdown strategy and platform, helping to optimize the process through data-driven decision-making. “The effectiveness and the efficiency of these data-driven decisions help to preserve our margins while ultimately creating more sales opportunities both online and in stores,” said Gray. This new process created substantial value while setting the foundation for future automation, pricing science, and machine learning innovations.
Long-Term Goals
The Technology Business Management Office has helped Macy’s accelerate future growth by enhancing its Product Operating Model, moving the company away from a project mindset and focusing more on transforming their products, helping them maintain a competitive advantage and increase value. “The program has been anchored on some core principles and objectives, which have driven value and positively impacted some of the largest programs at Macy’s,” said Gray. She hopes to expand the program further to align with Macy’s strategic objectives, establishing a culture of collaboration and agility nested with accountability and measuring performance, predictability, capacity, and quality through defined metrics.
Greatest Tech Impact
The latest tech innovations, including ChatGPT or AI/ML, often get all the attention. Still, Gray feels people, processes, and technology will always significantly impact any business more. Gray is leading the transformation of Macy’s into a digital-first organization, and stakeholders from every part of the organization play a vital role. “As we focus on sustaining the structure, mindset, and governance that has already been institutionalized, we will continue to further scale and promote the new ways of working across the rest of the organization,”
said Gray.
Vice President, Technology Business Management and Corporate Systems
Macy’s
25 years with Macy’s;
4 in current role
Karen
Gray
Staying Connected
With hybrid work here to stay, Gray believes staying connected with colleagues is vital for Macy’s to create an inclusive workplace that fosters the next generation of industry leaders. With impromptu meetings in the hallway a thing of the past, learning to connect with the power of technology is critical to facilitating proper communication and collaboration among team members.
“Setting expectations and modeling your behavior is a must,” said Gray. ”I am a firm believer in the power of conversation, and that is how I stay connected with fellow colleagues in person or in a hybrid working model.”
Giving Back
Gray is proud of Macy’s focus on giving back to the community. Her Macy’s Tech Johns Creek location has developed a campaign to give back to those in need during the holidays, providing basics and special gifts to low-income children and seniors throughout the community. “Each of us that takes a moment to see people out of our sight line allows us to reflect on what is truly important in life while extending our own family by taking care of those who need a helping hand,” said Gray.
Memorable Mentor
Gray has been lucky to work with crucial mentors and coaches who have challenged her and pushed her outside her comfort zone. “I have benefited from advocates who supported me, provided me with opportunities I thought were beyond my reach, and ultimately all of them not only helped teach me about the leader I wanted to be but also the leader I did not want to be,” said Gray.
Quick Fact
Karen holds a BBA from the University of West Georgia.
2023
Women’s Role Within the Industry
“When I started less than 20 years ago, there were a handful of women in the C-suite, and today, I see change, but I can’t wait for the day I walk into a
TITLE SPONSOR
SPONSORED BY
SPONSORED BY