Food and beverage giants are taking seats at the table that will shape how retail media evolves — and who pays for it. Media in Retail (MiR), the executive network operated by RETHINK Retail, announced two founding cohorts on Monday comprising 14 senior brand and agency leaders, expanding the community beyond its retail media network origins to encompass the full commerce media stack.
Who's In the Room
The brand cohort draws heavily from major F&B manufacturers. MK Woltz, Senior Director of Retail Media Strategy at Danone, joins alongside Juliana Nodwell, Retail Media Manager at Kraft Heinz; Nicole Lesinski, Director of eCommerce Strategy at Nestlé; and Josh Clarkson, Global Retail Media Lead at Mars. Cristina Marinucci, Chief Growth Officer at Righteous Felon, rounds out the five-person brand group.
The agency cohort spans the major holding companies and independents. Claudia Johnson, Chief Solutions Officer for Integrated Commerce at Omnicom, joins Jill Cruz, EVP of Commerce Strategy at Publicis Commerce; Jason O'Toole, EVP and Head of Commerce and Retail Media at dentsu; and Amie Owen, Chief Client Officer at Flywheel. WPP Media contributes two seats — Renee Caceres as Executive Director of Commerce and Jason Wescott as Global Head of Commerce Solutions — alongside representatives from Axiom, Goodway Group, and SMG.
Why CPG Is Paying Attention
For food and beverage brand managers and retail buyers, the expansion matters because retail media spending decisions increasingly sit inside trade and shopper marketing budgets. As networks from Walmart Connect to Kroger Precision Marketing proliferate, CPG manufacturers face compounding complexity: inconsistent measurement standards, fragmented data transparency, and internal talent shortages that make it difficult to evaluate ROI across dozens of retail partners. The MiR cohort structure is designed to surface those friction points in a peer setting rather than on a vendor-controlled stage.
Nestlé's Lesinski framed the stakes plainly. "Retail media grows as fast as its people do, and the next generation of operators will inherit businesses bigger than anything we have built so far," she said. "Fostering that next generation of talent will allow this industry to continue to evolve in ways that create real value for all of its constituents."
Vantage, a technology platform for retail media networks, has joined as a founding sponsor of MiR. Its Chief Strategy Officer, Drew Cashmore, chairs the network. "Retailers, brands and agencies have spent years building retail media practices in isolation," Cashmore said. "Bringing brand and agency leaders into MiR is how we start an honest conversation about where commerce media goes next."
What Comes Next
MiR will hold its inaugural Media in Retail Summit during Commerce Media Saturday, a satellite event tied to NRF 2027: Retail's Big Show in January 2027. The summit's agenda targets three pressure points relevant to F&B operators and their retail partners: converting physical store environments and digital channels into higher-margin ad inventory, driving omnichannel shopper engagement, and resolving cross-channel measurement and data-transparency disputes that have stalled budget commitments from several large CPG advertisers.
The network's formation follows a broader industry pattern: as retail media investment among food and beverage brands accelerates, structured peer communities are emerging as a hedge against the fragmentation created by each major grocer and mass retailer operating its own network on its own terms. Applications for the next cohort are open at rethink.industries/mir. For additional context on how shopper marketing budgets are shifting inside CPG organizations, see related coverage at F&B Industry News.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
