2025 Women of Influence

The Shelby-Griffin Report presents the 20th annual tribute to Women of Influence in the food industry. For 20 years, we’ve honored the outstanding women shaping the food industry—from executives and innovators to mentors and community leaders. This year’s nominees represent a diverse range of roles, backgrounds, and regions, each making a profound impact in their careers and beyond.

Explore their stories below, and join us in celebrating their achievements.

2025 Women of Influence

2025 Women of Influence

Sally Robinson

VP, Strategic Initiatives, Upshop

Sally Robinson exemplifies leadership in food retail technology. Her oversight of strategic planning has been instrumental in identifying growth opportunities and developing roadmaps that drive Upshop's continued success and innovation. Sally's ability to analyze industry trends and competitive landscapes enables her to craft forward-thinking strategies that position Upshop at the forefront of food retail technology. Working with senior leadership, she articulates a strategic vision and drives execution across all organizational levels, ensuring implementation of key initiatives. Her influence extends beyond Upshop through relationships with external partners, including vendors, industry thought leaders and a global customer base spanning more than 145 organizations. These connections provide insights into emerging trends and opportunities that inform Upshop's strategic direction. Sally has established herself as an expert on FSMA 204 food safety compliance, demonstrating knowledge through thought leadership. Her expertise is so well regarded that major grocers have requested her guidance on food safety legislature.

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2025 Women of Influence

Sandra Horn

Director of Sales Development – Perishables, C.A. Ferolie

Sandra Horn exemplifies exceptional leadership, strategic vision and a deep commitment to community impact. She brings more than a decade of progressive leadership from Wakefern Food Corp., where she delivered breakthrough results across marketing, category management and customer segmentation.
As the Hispanic customer segmentation manager at Wakefern, she led a high-impact initiative to engage the fastest-growing demographic in the Northeast, generating double-digit growth across all key metrics and deepening brand loyalty through a culturally attuned, data-driven strategy.
In her prior role as shopper marketing manager, she executed multimillion-dollar, insight-led omnichannel campaigns that elevated customer engagement and drove seasonal retail success across mainstream and multicultural moments.
Beyond commercial success, her civic-minded initiatives stand out, most notably a charitable sales program in the baby category that resulted in $600,000 in incremental sales and the donation of more than 500,000 diapers to families in need.
With a rare blend of strategic acumen, creative execution and a make-things-happen-mindset, she leads with purpose, delivers consistent results and lifts up business outcomes and the communities she serves.

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2025 Women of Influence

Sarah Baker

Manager of Pricing Strategy, The Giant Co.

Sarah Baker develops, executes and governs price strategy to ensure the company's competitive price position and deliver brand margin commitments. She provides guidance and counsel related to price strategy, leads the price strategy and cost and deals team and manages third-party relationships and contracts related to price strategy.
Sarah spearheaded focused price actions to contribute multimillion dollar increases in margin to brand margin commitments without a negative impact to the customer value proposition. She also brought forecasting and reporting mechanisms forward to better govern price strategy and leveraged her IT background to facilitate efficiencies, data-driven decision-making and to remove technical obstacles from her areas of responsibility.
In 2024, Sarah expanded her responsibilities by assuming leadership of the company's cost and deals team, which is responsible for generating accurate vendor billings.
Sarah also undertook two special projects for The Giant Co. in 2024 – migration to a new pricing platform and UOP growth. Both required effective communication, change management and data validation to ensure success.

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2025 Women of Influence

Sarah Boddy

Managing Director, St Pierre

Sarah Boddy holds a pivotal leadership role, leading St Pierre in expanding its global presence, ensuring the brand remains a market leader in global bakery, overseeing the financial health of the business and building and nurturing a high-performing team of more than 90 across multiple markets. Sarah leads by example and fosters a positive company culture, developing the business' manifesto of "rejecting ordinary in relentless pursuit of extraordinary" in one of her first actions as managing director. Sarah joined the business in January 2023 as commercial director, with a rich background in CPG sales. However, Sarah was promoted to managing director in January 2024 and has delivered extraordinary results for the business ever since. In the U.S. market, Sarah has ensured St Pierre's continued growth in a declining sector. Bakery – and particularly in-store bakery – is having a tough time, yet St Pierre closed the year out still showing volume growth – once again bucking the category trends, as it has year on year. Sarah was also responsible for spearheading St Pierre's new global creative platform "Eat Avec Respect," a bold take on French superiority that launched in the UK in summer 2024 and was refined for the U.S. market launch in February 2025. Sarah worked relentlessly to secure buy-in from multiple stakeholders, to agree investment in media at a critical time for the brand's development, demonstrating incredible leadership and ambition.

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2025 Women of Influence

Sarah Brannon

Assistant Sales Manager, Albertsons Companies, Haggen

Sarah Brannon leads from a place of calm and humility. She cares about empowering her teammates to be their very best and holds people accountable to deliver their commitments. In addition to her leadership qualities, Sarah is creative and loves to win. She leads with a depth of heart that inspires her team at every turn.

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2025 Women of Influence

Sarah May

Director, Retail Solutions, iPro Systems

Sarah May works directly with independent retailers to make sure their needs shape the tools and tech built to support them. In her role, she sits at the intersection of retail reality and internal development – working with teams across the company to build tools that help independent grocers where it matters most.

She loves that her work touches a wide range of projects, but her main focus is making sure the solutions iPro creates are useful, easy to use and deliver real impact – then helping internal teams and retailers get on board and use them to their full potential.

She finds the greatest reward in knowing her work makes life easier for retailers who are juggling a thousand things at once. The biggest challenge? The clock. There’s never quite enough time in the day; a challenge every independent retailer can relate to.

A major turning point in Sarah’s career came when she realized she didn’t need to have it all figured out before raising her hand. Her advice to those climbing the ladder: Speak up before you feel 100 percent ready – and stay humble as you grow.

Sarah also serves on the board of directors for Women Grocers of America and recently led the committee to select the 2025 WGA Woman of the Year. She’s always focused on what’s next. Right now, that includes learning new parts of the industry, launching and driving adoption for new tech, deepening connections and championing fresh initiatives alongside WGA.

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2025 Women of Influence

Sarah Sandberg

Chief Customer Officer, Upshop

Sarah Sandberg transforms customer experience across food retail technology. Overseeing implementation, project management, customer support and success and business solutions architecture, she orchestrates a seamless journey driving satisfaction, retention and growth. Sarah's leadership spans the U.S., Canada and Europe, maintaining consistent engagement while managing a team of 80 professionals. Her initiatives impact metrics, including net revenue retention and customer advocacy, aligning success with business performance. Sarah navigated the complex Invafresh-Upshop merger, creating a unified customer experience without disruption. This achievement, alongside initiatives delivering best-in-class retention metrics, demonstrates her operational acumen. Her innovative executive engagement program strengthened C-level relationships, while her customer listening mechanisms revolutionized how the company responds to client needs. Beyond corporate achievements, Sarah serves as a founding mentor with "Women in Customer Success," supporting professional development of women in the industry. Her community commitment extends to volunteering with "Moms Demand Action," advocating for gun safety policies. Sarah demonstrates how leadership can drive business success and meaningful social impact.

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2025 Women of Influence

Sarah Williams

Local Marketing Manager, Stop & Shop

In 2024, Sarah Williams demonstrated strong leadership, driving the success of store remodels and grand openings with innovative marketing campaigns. She also managed Stop & Shop's mobile truck, organizing sampling events with CPG partners and developing unique activations that boosted brand visibility and community engagement.
Sarah pioneered monetization opportunities with the mobile truck, securing multiple paid partnerships, generating incremental revenue and earning positive feedback from vendors.
Sarah rises to challenges with dedication and a proactive approach. A great example was when she developed and executed a holiday sampling plan that delighted customers.
Sarah collaborates across teams – marketing, public relations, merchandising and store operations – and is known as a trusted resource. Store leaders often turn to Sarah for answers, confident she'll have the solution or guide them appropriately.
Beyond her professional role, Sarah is a community volunteer and serves as the Pride Associate Resource Group's co-lead, advocating for the LGBTQ+ community and allies. She also mentors a college intern through Stop & Shop's partnership with the Saltire International Internship Program.

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2025 Women of Influence

Shelley Wright

Controller, Associated Grocers of New England

Shelley Wright is an exceptional leader whose contributions to the finance department have advanced the company's operations. Over the past 8-plus years, she has demonstrated skill in improving key processes and fostering the growth of her team.
Her impact is evident in several initiatives. Shelley played a pivotal role in re-engineering the budgeting process for AG's corporate retail stores, leading to more accurate forecasting and better resource allocation. She also was instrumental in the acquisition and integration of three additional Vermont corporate stores into the AGS Vermont group, ensuring operational continuity and success. In addition, by automating KPI reporting, she enabled leadership to make more informed, data-driven decisions.
Shelley's financial initiatives have left a lasting impact, from streamlining store-level receiving to creating uniform processes across all corporate stores. Shelley's aptitude for leadership has been evident in her rapid career progression – starting as a senior staff accountant, she advanced to retail accounting manager and then controller, where she oversees all areas of the finance department.
As a hands-on leader, Shelley is invested in the development of her team. She leads by example, sharing her industry knowledge and mentoring team members to reach their full potential. Shelley's contributions, coupled with her dedication and expertise, continue to drive success across the finance department and the company.

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2025 Women of Influence

Shii Stickler

VP, Natural West, Acosta Group

As a strategic leader, Shii Stickler defines the overall vision and direction for the Natural West division, ensuring it aligns with the company's broader goals and objectives. In her role, she sets the vision and strategy for her team to execute on clients' sales objectives within natural channel customers in the West.
Shii is responsible for leading and mentoring her team of nine directors, providing them with the guidance and support they need to achieve their targets and develop professionally. She works with clients to understand their needs and objectives, ensuring the team delivers tailored solutions that drive sales and growth within the natural channel.
Collaboration is a key aspect of Shii's role. She works with other divisions and departments within the company to leverage resources, share best practices and drive overall business success.
Shii also serves as a Court Appointed Special Advocate for foster youth in Alameda County, California, providing crucial support and advocacy for children in the foster care system. In addition, she is an Eagle Coach and Merit Badge Counselor for the Boy Scouts of America, where she mentors young scouts and helps them achieve their goals.
Shii also chairs the board at Dayspring Pre-School in Danville, California, where she plays a key role in guiding the school's mission and ensuring a high-quality educational experience for young children.

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