NEWS

NEW reception for Bill Grize Òis all about the peopleÓ

CHICAGO - Bill Grize, president and CEO of Ahold USA Retail Operations, received the Outstanding Champion award from the Network of Executive Women during a reception held in conjunction with the Food Marketing Institute Show here. The NEW reception, held Sunday, May 2, was co-sponsored by Deloitte.

Grize is the third recipient of the award since NEW's founding in 2001. The award is given to an industry leader who has done the most to promote NEW's goals of attracting, retaining and advancing women in the retail and CPG industries.

Grize accepted the award from NEW president Kimberly Betts, director of communications for Ahold USA. She cited Grize for his steadfast support of the organization. “Bill’s responded to every single request that we’ve ever made on behalf of the Network,” Betts said. “He’s a true champion of NEW and advocate of diversity in the industry.”

In accepting the award, Grize told a packed room of more than 200 NEW supporters at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel that the real champions were those in the room who first started NEW and the group’s sponsoring companies.

"These are the champions," said Grize. "It's not just the dollars, and the mix of sexes and races. It's not about diversity. It's about the people,” Grize said. "Yes, we must do better and learn to embrace and utilize all this talent."

In addition, NEW awarded a $1,000 scholarship to Gretchen Timmons, who is
pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in marketing at Portland State
University.

Diversity discussions

During the week, NEW teamed with representatives of Deloitte to host best practices on diversity discussions at the Procter & Gamble booth at FMI.

Gina Bonar, Megan Geswein and Alison Paul from Deloitte joined Joan Toth and Anna Duran from NEW to speak with dozens of FMI attendees and NEW supporters at the P&G booth. Copies of a Deloitte brochure celebrating the tenth anniversary of the consulting firm’s “Initiative for the Retention and Advancement of Women” were also distributed by the team. To obtain a complimentary copy of the complete report, call Megan Geswein of Deloitte at 312-946-2525 or email mgeswein@deloitte.com.

Joan Toth, executive director of NEW, thanked Deloitte, Procter & Gamble and the attendees who participated for making the FMI diversity discussions a success. “It is gratifying to see so much genuine interest in the food industry around the issue of diversity,” Toth said. “This event proves that we are making real progress on a subject so critical to the industry’s future.”

Christina Veiders, managing editor of Supermarket News, contributed to this article.