Bill Tolany

Why organisations work with Bill Tolany

• He has run brand and marketing inside a category-defining grocer and operations inside Amazon’s ultra-fast delivery business, so he can talk about customer experience as both a marketing problem and a logistics problem.
• As Senior Director of Marketing at Whole Foods Market, he launched the integrated marketing team and grew alternative commerce sales by hundreds of millions of dollars; a specific commercial result, not a theme.
• His Amazon Prime Now experience as Regional General Manager gives him direct exposure to the operating model that consumer brands are now being benchmarked against.
• As Turnaround CEO of Greenling, he has carried the cost discipline and unit economics of a venture-stage e-commerce business, not just commentary on it.
• He moves easily between corporate transformation conversations and start-up advisory work, useful for buyers whose internal teams need to understand both worlds.

Biography highlights

• Senior Director of Marketing, Whole Foods Market; founding leader of its integrated media team.
• Regional General Manager, Amazon Prime Now, during its launch and expansion phase.
• Turnaround CEO, Greenling, Inc., a mission-driven local food e-commerce business.
• Board Director, The Very Good Food Company Inc., appointed December 2020.
• Advisor to multiple consumer and technology start-ups.
• US patent holder.

Biography

Whole Foods Market and Amazon were two of the most studied consumer businesses of the last decade. Bill Tolany held senior roles at both before they merged, which is unusual for any operator working in modern retail.

At Whole Foods Market he served as Senior Director of Marketing and founding leader of the integrated media team. The brief covered brand, social and mobile; the result, according to the company’s own later disclosures, was the launch of an integrated marketing function and growth of alternative commerce sales by hundreds of millions of dollars. His public commentary on Whole Foods’ social strategy, where roughly 85% of corporate tweets were customer responses, became a reference point for retailers thinking about brand as service.

Amazon then recruited him as Regional General Manager for Prime Now, the ultra-fast local delivery business that pushed Amazon into the consumer experience grocers had previously owned. That role gave him direct exposure to how marketing, logistics and store operations have to be re-wired when a customer expects a one-hour window. He later ran Greenling, Inc. as Turnaround CEO, taking on the unit economics of a mission-driven local food platform rather than commenting on them.

He sits on the Board of The Very Good Food Company Inc., a plant-based food business, and advises start-ups in media, education and e-commerce. The throughline is practical: how a consumer brand sustains a relationship with its customer when the delivery model, the marketing channel and the competitor set all change at once.

Key speaking topics

• Customer experience in modern retail
• Marketing and commerce integration
• Digital transformation in grocery and food
• E-commerce operating models
• Brand building through service and social
• Start-up and corporate innovation
• Plant-based and mission-driven consumer businesses

Ideal for

• CMOs and customer experience leaders in retail, grocery and consumer brands
• Heads of digital, e-commerce and omnichannel inside consumer businesses
• Leadership teams at food, beverage and mission-driven consumer companies
• Corporate innovation and venture teams working with consumer start-ups

Audience outcomes

• A clearer view of how marketing, operations and logistics combine to produce customer experience in modern retail.
• Specific reference points from Whole Foods Market and Amazon Prime Now on how brand and commerce can be run as one system.
• Sharper questions to ask about the unit economics of e-commerce and ultra-fast delivery models.
• Perspective on how legacy consumer brands can work with and learn from start-up operators.