ACGLA Retail and Consumer Trends - June 19th 2019

Charity Manley, Partner & Leader of Pacific Southwest Consumer & Retail - KPMG 

Charity is an Audit partner in the LA office where she focuses on serving large food and beverage companies and retailers. She leads a cross-functional team of industry focused professionals as the Southern California Consumer Markets and Retail Audit Leader and is closely linked to the KPMG National Consumer Markets and Retail network. Charity has over 16 years of experience working with large public and private international companies under both US GAAP and IFRS. She has a deep understanding of common challenges, opportunities, strategies and structures facing food and beverage companies and restaurants. Her clients have included Nestle, PepsiCo, Forever 21, Deckers Outdoor Corporation and The Wonderful Company.

Catherine McCord, Founder - Weelicious and One Potato

Launched in 2007, Catherine created Weelicious.com as a platform to show parents around the world how easy and beneficial it is to expose children to wholesome, delicious homemade food. After personally struggling with how to feed her baby, Catherine recognized a need to be filled: simple, nutritious recipes for parents using minimal ingredients that are fully loaded with flavor. Weelicious is currently home to over 1,300+ original family friendly recipes and more than 300 videos. Catherine inspires the Weelicious community with readily available ingredients and recipes that are fast and easy.  Debuting new recipes weekly and a how-to cooking video posted every Tuesday, Weelicious is a wealth of trusted information for families.

In 2012, William Morrow published Catherine's first book, Weelicious: One Family. One Meal. An inspirational feeding guide, Catherine cleverly weaves together first-hand experience with fact-based evidence, then naturally progresses into 140 of her original “fast, fun and easy” recipes. Her second book, Weelicious Lunches: Think Outside the Lunchbox published by William Morrow in September 2013. Addressing the familiar lament of the redundant nature of creating lunches for children, Catherine provides a variety of realistic solutions and more than 160 recipes to help time-challenged parents think outside the box, and beyond the standard PB&J, when packing their kids' lunch. Catherine’s third book, The Smoothie Project, will be published January 2020 with Abrams.

Catherine authors a monthly “Snack Mom” column in Parenting Magazine, has appeared multiple times in People, Self and Real Simple Magazine, on the Today Show, The Chew, Access Hollywood Live, Good Morning America and Fox News. She appears regularly on the Food Network’s Guy’s Grocery Games has guested on Next Food Network Star and Duff Till Dawn and each week on NBC’s Danny Seo Naturally. 

In 2016, Catherine co-founded One Potato: an organic family friendly meal company delivering semi-prepared meals to encourage families to cook and eat together. Currently One Potato is in 8 states on the west coast and building out a line of sauce, dressing and in store 10 minute dinner kits. 

Bree Pastalaniec Richmond, VP Retail & Field Integration - Beautycounter

Bree has spent 20+ years in the retail industry with experience in large scale, global, multi-channel and startup businesses; working for the likes of French Connection, Michael Kors and Reformation.

Melody Nabati, Founder - Mini Dreamers

Mini Dreamers is a mini department store for kids, carrying over 120 kids clothing lines from around the world and has evolved into an international online e-commerce store! Inspired by stores such as Intermix and Barneys, Mini Dreamers captures that same experience for kids, with the trendiest and most unique pieces hard to find anywhere else.  Combining edgy style and classic fashion sense, our clothing is handpicked from every designer to create the absolute best selection. At Mini Dreamers, we keep up with upcoming trends as well as curate and creatively style, so you don’t have to.

Melody has taken the business reigns, expanding Mini Dreamers to reach more customers through pop-ups, events, and exceptional customer service. Our goal is to build strong relationships with all our customers and become everyone's go-to shop for fashionable kids’ clothing.  Ultimately, we envision a world where everyone is free to express themselves, especially the next generation of leaders and visionaries — your children, our mini dreamers.

Melody's history includes working at an LA kids clothing boutique for 3 years, while attending USC and studying business with an emphasis in marketing.  She worked PR for two years,  which lead to working in her family's video games distribution company. As an operations manager Melody learned the ins and outs of running a business. Eventually while leading the business she realized that she wanted to pursue something she was passionate about - thus, the birth of Mini Dreamers. 

Greg Fass, Senior Manager Brand Marketing - MeUndies'

Greg is MeUndies’ second employee where he has played a pivotal role in shaping the brand’s foundation and DNA. Through the years Greg has overseen partnerships, social media,
influencer marketing and public relations. In his current role as Senior Manager of Brand Marketing, Greg drives MeUndies’ brand strategy where he manages the direction and vision of the company's marketing initiatives. Greg speaks regularly about MeUndies’ scrappy and unorthodox marketing strategies at conferences around the world and has had those same tactics recognized by top-tier publications. Prior to MeUndies Greg was an Account Executive at Moxie PR group, a full-service communications agency and brand consultancy that focuses on technology startups. There, Greg helped craft PR strategy for brands like Dollar Shave Club and DogVacay. 

Greg holds a B.A. in Economics from The University of Colorado at Boulder. He was a sponsored amateur snowboarder before attending college and was ranked 3rd in the country for slopestyle and superpipe.