2025 Food Industry Summit Speakers

President, Global Retail, Circana

Rob Hill leads Circana’s Global Retail team, overseeing engagements for greater than 1000 retailer partners spanning more than 20 industries and classes of trade tracked by Circana (formerly IRI and NPD). Rob and his team are focused on helping Circana’s clients understand their marketplace performance to maximize their business success by working with data assets that include POS, Supply Chain, Loyalty, Audience Creation and Media activation and measurement.

Hill's experience in developing marketing effectiveness, price, promotion, and assortment strategies through data, research, and strategy, across a variety of retail clients, gives him valuable perspective in an evolving retail landscape. Hill and the team combine this perspective with Circana data, technology, analytics and insights when identifying and presenting Retail Thought Leadership Trends or go-to-market strategies to partners and the industry. 

Prior to joining Circana, Hill spent nearly 30 years in the retail industry-leading data strategy for clients such as Walmart, L’Oréal, Colgate, Mars, Hershey, Ahold, J & J, Church and Dwight, PepsiCo and CVS. Additionally, Rob was the General Manager of Global Beauty Group, a developer and supplier of retailer exclusive beauty lines. Additionally, he served as Nielsen’s Executive Vice President of Business Development and then as the US Lead of Nielsen’s Retail Services Group where he played a key role in designing and deploying data sharing and joint analytic and collaboration programs between retailers and manufacturers. Hill started his career in operations at Aldi Foods.

“Content Guy" / Prime Storyteller, Author & Co-Author

For more than 40 years, Kevin Coupe has been bringing to audiences all over the world a wealth of experience, sharp storytelling skills, provocative and contextual insights, unique worldview and "serious irreverence" about the world of business and consumers.

He is the author of “Retail Rules! 52 Ways To Achieve Retail Success," a guidebook for competing effectively and efficiently on Main Street, and co-author, with Michael Sansolo, of “The Big Picture: Essential Business Lessons from the Movies,” which uses film narratives to teach about leadership, marketing and surviving the workplace.

More than 23 years ago, he launched MorningNewsBeat.com, providing “business news in context, and analysis with attitude” to more than 25,000 subscribers all over the world, finding critical, relevant and resonant lessons not just in the world of retailing, but also in sports, popular culture and a wide range of other businesses. An independent survey recently ranked MNB as the “top industry news and information site.”

And, Kevin is an adjunct faculty member at Portland State University in Oregon.

In addition to speaking at hundreds of conferences in the U.S. and abroad and reporting from 49 states and six continents, Kevin has been a daily newspaper reporter, magazine writer/editor, video producer, bodyguard, and clothing salesman. He has supervised a winery tasting room (happily), run two marathons (slowly), driven a race car (badly), learned to box (painfully) and acted in a major (but obscure) motion picture. 

He is married with three grown children and lives in Connecticut.

Global Crisis Management, Weber Shandwick’s North America

Errol Cockfield is a global crisis management expert and C-Suite advisor with deep experience across public affairs, media and societal issues. He has counseled the leaders of top corporations to help protect their reputations and advance brand goals at key moments of change.

Cockfield is the head of Weber Shandwick’s North America Crisis and Issues team. He has extensive experience in litigation support, brand safety, supply chain and regulatory affairs across various sectors including food and beverage, personal care and apparel.

Prior to Weber Shandwick, Cockfield led retained accounts in leadership roles at Brunswick Group and Edelman - two of the world’s largest critical issues agencies. He specializes in designing issues campaigns to impact stakeholder sentiment, managing proactive and defensive media relations, and running tabletop exercises for C-suite teams. He is also a media trainer and executive coach. 

A journalist by training, Cockfield has deep knowledge of the changing media landscape. In addition to his consulting experience, he helped lead communications at NBC News. He was principally in charge of external relations for MSNBC as the news division evolved to a multi-platform digital destination.

Earlier in his career, he served as press secretary to two New York governors and was chief of staff to the majority leader of the NY State Senate. He is a graduate of Stony Brook University and serves on several nonprofit boards. 

Professor and Vice Chair, Health Sciences

Deutsch is the Founding Program Director of Drexel’s Food Innovation and Entrepreneurship Programs, which encompasses culinary, food, nutrition, exercise and health sciences. He is the former President of the Upcycled Food Foundation and previously was the inaugural James Beard Foundation Impact Fellow, leading a national curriculum effort on food waste reduction for chefs and culinary educators. He was named a Food Waste Warrior by Foodtank. 

Before moving to Drexel, Deutsch built the culinary arts program at Kingsborough Community College, City University of New York (CUNY) and the PhD concentration in food studies at the CUNY Graduate Center and
School of Public Health. At Drexel, he directs the Drexel Food Lab, a culinary innovation and food product research and development lab focused on solving real world food system problems in the areas of sustainability, health promotion and inclusive dining. 

He is the co-author or -editor of eight books including Barbecue: A Global History (with Megan Elias), Culinary Improvisation, and The Anti-Inflammatory Family Cookbook, and numerous articles in journals of food studies, public health and hospitality education. 

He earned his PhD in Food Studies and Food Management from New York University (2004), his culinary degree from the Culinary Institute of America (AOS, Culinary Arts, (1997) and is an alumnus of Drexel University (BS, Hospitality Management, 1999). A classically trained chef, Deutsch worked in a variety of settings including product development, small luxury inns and restaurants. When not in the kitchen, he can be found behind his tuba.

CEO, eGrowcery

Hughes is an accomplished executive and entrepreneur with expertise in developing early-stage companies for growth and long-term success. His background includes 25+ years of eCommerce, data analytics, outsourced labor, product design and integrated marketing focused on retail, financial services, CPG and grocery. 

VP, VusionGroup 

Wurster is a Business Development professional with more than 20 years of experience in complex sales, C-Level presentations, enterprise sales strategy and project management. He is currently Senior Key Account Manager at VusionGroup, the world’s leading retail digitization company, and previously held a similar role at Checkpoint Systems, InVue Security Products and Auror.

Retail Food Industry Consultant

Countless studies and years of work with some of the world’s most innovative companies gives Michael Sansolo a unique and diverse view of the changing nature of trends impacting shoppers, employees, competition, economics, supply chains and management. A long-time senior vice president of the Food Marketing Institute and now a consultant, speaker and author, Sansolo has traveled the globe working with companies on adjusting to new market conditions.

He currently serves as the research director of the Coca-Cola Retailing Research Councils of North America, working with these groups on emerging business topics such as social networking, emerging technology and changing consumer wants and needs.

Sansolo recently authored Business Rules! a collection of diverse and useful lessons in business success. Stories are gathered from companies of all sizes and lessons from professional sports, Broadway Theater, a New York City catering company and pop star Lady Gaga.

Previously, Sansolo co-authored The Big Picture: Essential Business Lessons from the Movies, a book that identifies creative lessons in leadership, marketing and workplace dynamics gleaned from movies as varied as The Godfather and Young Frankenstein. Topics in the book include ethics, brand building, crisis management, outside-the-box thinking and diversity. Sansolo also writes a weekly column on wide-ranging business trends for www.MorningNewsBeat.com, a daily blog with nearly 35,000 readers.

VP of Revenue, Flashfood 

Simmons currently serves as VP of revenue for Flashfood, an app-based marketplace that connects consumers with fresh food at great prices, while reducing the amount of food grocery stores send to landfill. In his role, Tyler is responsible for expanding the company’s footprint across North America and establishing Flashfood as the top solution for grocers looking to innovate their in-store operations and customer acquisition. 

Tyler Simmons has been leading sales and go-to-market teams domestically and internationally for over 15 years. In the food and grocery sector, he led business development at Bowery Farming, adding distribution to traditional and digital grocers, and managing their excess product distribution. After his time at Bowery, he joined Too Good To Go to lead enterprise sales in the US, selling to some of the largest US food service businesses to reduce food waste in the restaurant sector. 

Beyond the food industry, Tyler worked at Foursquare for 5.5 years, leading partnerships and strategy for their US advertising business and then becoming Managing Director for APAC based in Singapore. 

Today, Tyler lives in Manhattan with his wife and young son.