Celebrating Women of UNFI Professional Services

In honor of Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day on March 8th, UNFI Professional Services is excited to shine a spotlight on a few of the women-led organizations we partner with that offer innovative services and solutions to our grocery retailers nationwide. 

Although there has been some progress, women are still dramatically underrepresented in leadership roles, according to the LeanIn.org and McKinsey’s 2022 Women in the Workplace report. We believe it is vitally important to celebrate these trailblazing women’s achievements in our business and continue to invest in the next generation of female leaders in management roles industry-wide. 

• Syd Hannigan, Pivotal Tools
• Talbott Roche, Blackhawk Network
• Mette Lykke, Too Good to Go

Syd Hannigan

Co-Founder and Vice President of Sales & Business Development, Pivotal Tools

The crew working the night shift at the Berkeley Co-op literally walked off the job when Syd Hannigan showed up to work one evening, after she was promoted from bagger. This was the early 1970s, and despite the fact that the Consumers’ Cooperative of Berkeley—as it was officially known—was way ahead of its time when it came to pesticide-free produce and merchandising, it wasn’t the norm for men and women of to work alongside each other restocking shelves at night. With Syd’s tenacity, she won them over—and, eventually, they bonded over a couple of beers.

Syd’s perseverance helped her climb the ranks at the progressive grocery store and Safeway took notice, bringing her aboard to test some new merchandising innovations in their Northern California division and later in Portland, Oregon. As an early implementer of data-informed category management in 1700 stores for Safeway, Syd knew the importance of taking customer preferences and local products into account in different markets. She spent 25 years driving assortment optimization and category management at scale.

The opportunity to attend USC’s Food Industry Management Program (FIM) was a real turning point in her career. “It really broadened my horizons about what could be done in grocery,” Syd recounts, and she began to look at data to inform Safeway’s assortments and manage categories as a single business unit across the chain. Working with vendors, suppliers, and manufacturers in a collaborative way—not an adversarial one—was the key to evolution of category management and progress on the shelf.

Syd brings her vast knowledge and expertise about harnessing data to inform business decisions to her current venture, Pivotal Tools, an app that offers actionable data and analytics to independent grocers nationwide.

In addition to her work at Pivotal Tools, Syd has taught a class at Portland State University twice a year for the past eight years. “I continue to mentor women, offer advice, and help them network and make connections,” Syd explains. One thing I often tell young women in this field is to “always put your hand up,” even if you aren’t sure you have the answer. “Don’t be afraid to make a mistake,” she advises. “If you don’t have the answer, figure out how to get the answer.”

Talbott Roche 

CEO & President of Blackhawk Network 

Talbott Roche credits her family and her all-girls school in Richmond, Virginia, with instilling in her the belief that women can do anything. An interest in entrepreneurialism and business management consulting led her toward brand management, which she says combined her knack for deep analytics and her love for consumer-facing businesses. She was working in marketing and new business initiatives for a supermarket chain in 2001 when an insight that working women have only 30 minutes of discretionary time--but control 70% of gifting dollars--led to a trial placement of seven gift cards in their Northern California division of stores. It did a whopping $9 million in sales. 

Fast-forward twenty years and Blackhawk Network is now a multi-billion dollar business operating across 28 countries, driving one of the largest categories of spend in digital commerce. In addition to traditional gift cards, Blackhawk leads with gift cards made from sustainable materials and is innovating in value-added products including gaming and rewards incentives. 

Talbott became the CEO of Blackhawk Network in 2016 and is immensely proud of the company she has helped build: “We are always focused on what’s next.” As for her own growth, Talbott says her three guiding principles are "committ, create, and connect." She has mentored a number of employees at Blackhawk, many of whom name her as an inspiring influence on their professional careers. She gives all of herself to everything she does, is passionate about creating better solutions and not settling for the status quo, and relies on her network of relationships for support. "Big achievements are more of a marathon than a sprint, she says. "Embrace the opportunities and challenges with equal persistence and energy."
 

Mette Lykke 

CEO of Too Good to Go 

In the early days of her first start-up, fitness community app, Endomondo, Mette Lykke attended one of the biggest tech conferences in the world alongside her two co-founders. “Everybody who came over—mostly men—asked to talk to a manager.” On day two, Mette insisted they all wear name tags with their names and titles, so everyone would know she was also one of the founders. A lot has changed since then, she explains, “Women are more and more excited about what you can do with tech.” As a company, Too Good To Go is very focused on gender parity and has a strong percentage of women in managerial and leadership positions.

It was by complete happenstance that Mette became the CEO of Too Good To Go. A woman on the bus showed her the app on her phone, and she was intrigued. She thought it was a brilliant concept. Mette immediately connected with the app’s creators to offer them congratulations, just as they were searching for someone with app experience to join the team. Within a few months, she invested and was soon working with Too Good To Go full-time.

Today, Too Good To Go is the world’s largest business-to-consumer marketplace for surplus food.

Running a company comes naturally to Mette, who possesses an entrepreneurial mindset as well as a genuine aptitude for leadership: “Authenticity is one of the values that I strongly believe in when it comes to leadership.”

About PivotalView

PivotalView from Pivotal Tools is a web-based mobile analytics tool specifically designed for independent grocers. It delivers the information grocers typically retrieve from back-office system reports in a convenient, accessible format—right on their mobile device.

About Blackhawk Network 

By providing convenient access to the brands consumers love, Blackhawk makes it easier to share meaningful gifts with family, friends, and colleagues on any special occasion. They help retail partners build and expand their third-party gift card category sales in-store and online. This includes full-service card production and management, dedicated customer service, strategic marketing services, and best-in-class merchandising and fixture optimization.

About Too Good to Go 

Too Good To Go is a certified B-Corp and tech-for-good company powering the world’s #1 marketplace for surplus food. The app connects consumers to businesses with surplus food that would otherwise be thrown away from local restaurants, cafes, bakeries and grocery stores, such as pastries, fresh produce, bread and more. Too Good To Go provides a simple way for food businesses to redirect their surplus and consumers to help fight climate change in a fun, delicious way. Founded in 2016, Too Good To Go has saved over 185 million meals across 17 countries, which is the equivalent to 400 million kgs of CO2e gas emissions. Visit https://toogoodtogo.com for more information.