A summer internship led to a 20-year career in the CPG industry for Jena Sowers, who then seized the opportunity to more directly help independent grocers serve their communities.
Now the CEO of Hendersonville, Tennessee-based Alliance Retail Group, Sowers shares her thoughts on leadership, management and working with family-owned businesses with NGA’s Independent Grocer magazine.
The following are excerpts from her responses; you can read the full profile in the winter issue.
How did you get your start in the grocery industry?
I started as a Kool-Aid intern the summer before my senior year of college with Kraft Foods. That led to a full-time job offer that resulted in an amazing 20-year career, most of which was working with independent retailers supplied by Associated Wholesale Grocers. When I made the personal decision to leave corporate America, Alliance was the perfect fit for one of my greatest passions: helping family-owned businesses serve their small-town communities, much like the one I grew up in.
Starting as a store-level sales representative and working my way through the company over a breadth of different roles and experiences has provided me with great perspective, knowledge and relationships that have benefited me greatly and helped to prepare me for my current role. I gained an understanding of what our owner/operators deal with day in and day out. Moving to Alliance and working on the technology side was incredibly reinvigorating after 20 years in CPG.
You’ve worked in CPG, data analytics and cooperative retailing. What have these diverse perspectives taught you about the grocery business and what it needs to do to be successful?
The unique background and experience base I have allows me to strategically understand the business challenges and opportunities that our retailers and vendors face in today’s grocery industry. It has also facilitated an understanding of what they need to succeed, from competitive pricing to simplified analytics for quick and informed business decisions, to engaging today’s consumers in the way they demand to be engaged.
Having worked on these various sides, what lessons can each learn from the others?
It is critical to both sides’ success to have transparency through the shared use of robust and simplified business metrics that help measure KPIs for each party, keeping returns on investment high and retailer business healthy. Our goal is to always be the “easy” button for both our retailers and our vendors.
What is your management style and what has had the greatest influence on it?
I strive to surround myself with smart, driven teammates who have the same passion for what we are doing. I work to support our team and ensure we have a working environment that people enjoy and look forward to being a part of. When needed, I can get deep in detail with the team to solve complex problems to move our organization forward, but also can drive the big-picture strategy and simplify it into understandable, digestible and, most importantly, actionable measures.
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