Left to right: Bobby Watts and Bernadette "Bernie" Van Osdal
The AD Retail Media team, which is part of the Peapod Digital Labs company at Ahold Delhaize USA, recently made two strategic leadership appointments: Bobby Watts has become SVP of retail media, a newly created position in which he will be responsible for the overall growth of AD Retail Media, overseeing revenue and partnerships, and Bernadette “Bernie” Van Osdal has joined the team as its new VP of sales, in which capacity she will work collaboratively with Watts and the team to drive retail partnerships.
According to the company, “With Bobby and Bernie’s leadership, AD Retail Media will continue to harness its size and scale across the East Coast to create impactful growth within the retail media space.”
[Read more: “Ahold Delhaize USA Brands' Media Network to Go In-House”]
Watts brings to his latest position more than 30 years of grocery retail experience, having started his grocery career as a produce clerk at Food Lion. He has since held leadership roles in retail operations, category management, merchandising planning, sourcing, e-commerce merchandising and, most recently, retail media. He has also been instrumental in supporting many key transformational projects, among them synergy capture during the Ahold USA and Delhaize America merger, the development of an omnichannel commercial planning process, standing up of the PDL e-commerce merchandising function and, most recently, the in-house build and strategy development of the AD Retail Media function. Along with his industry experience and strong vendor relationships, Watts has a proven track record of collaborating across brands and functions.
Van Osdal is an accomplished sales leader and consultant possessing wide-ranging experience and a solid track record of building and scaling sales teams to drive profitable, strategic business expansion. She has extensive experience working in retail media networks, monetizing advertising efforts for such well-known brands as eBay, Shopping.com, StubHub and Walmart. Most recently, Van Osdal worked for New Stream Media, working with retailers to design, grow and scale their retail media network monetization programs.
Ahold Delhaize USA, a division of Zaandam, Netherlands-based Ahold Delhaize, operates more than 2,000 stores across 23 states and is No. 10 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2023 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America. PG also named the company one of its Retailers of the Century and its 10 Most Sustainable Grocers.