Kaye Young Senior Vice President Kantar Retail kaye.young@kantarretail.com

Kaye Young is a 20+-year veteran of sales and marketing. Uncovering shopper attitudes and behaviors towards brands at big box retailers, selling against the data, and building strong relationships with both national accounts and retail businesses are her key strengths.

Kaye began her career with Johnson and Johnson – McNeil. Weathering two highly publicized product-tampering incidents; Kaye became adept at crisis management. Moving quickly through the ranks at J&J, Kaye managed a succession of markets and accounts, including Eckerd Drug, Walgreen’s, Kroger, American Stores and Shopko. Kaye is credited for initiating and implementing a national promotional performance program for Kroger that is still used corporately by J&J today.

Kaye left Johnson and Johnson to join the New Era Beverage Division of Guinness as Director of National Accounts. Applying the classic business skills and strong business acumen learned at J&J, Kaye developed and implemented sales and marketing plans for large, national accounts, such as WAL*MART, Target, K-Mart, SAM’S/Pace, Costco/Price Club, BJ’s, Eckerd, Walgreen’s. In her years with NEB, Kaye generated 60% of the company’s total business through both direct accounts and a strong network of national account brokers. When the division was sold, Guinness rehired Kaye as their independent representative with sole responsibility for all national account business.

Kaye continued to grow the New Era/Everfresh business, as well as represent product lines for 50+ other national manufacturers, including Otis Spunkmeyer, Bel Kaukauna, Kikkoman, Maruchan, and 8 O’clock Coffee. She sold the business to Club Marketing in 1996, but continued to manage the business for the new proprietor for another four years. During this time, WAL*MART/SAM’S Club appointed Club Marketing/Kaye the in-house sourcing agent for new products, and Kaye was appointed Vice President of the division.

In 2000 Kaye joined Diam POP Worldwide as Vice President of Sales for the WAL*MART Team. In the short time she was with Diam, Kaye developed strong business relationships with Kodak and Revlon and served as the pivotal liaison for the WAL*MART Operations Team developing many specialty display programs still used today.