Dave Peacock was named Advantage Solutions CEO in January 2023. His 30-plus-year career in the consumer packaged goods and retail industry includes four years as president and chief operating officer of Schnuck Markets, Inc., and two decades at Anheuser-Busch, where he served three years as the company’s president.
Prior to joining Advantage, Peacock was chief operating officer and on the board of directors of Continental Grain Company, a global investor, owner and operator of companies across the food and agribusiness spectrum. Previously, he was a member of the board of advisors for, and was the founder and chairman of, Vitaligent, LLC, a multi-unit restaurant franchise.
He is a member of the board of directors of Stifel Financial Corp. and past member of the board of directors of Wayne-Sanderson Farms and Post Holdings Partnership Corporation. He also served on the board of trustees of the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis and the board of directors of Pink Ribbon Girls.
Chris Growe leads all aspects of Advantage Solutions’ finance organization, including investor relations, accounting, payroll, treasury and tax.
He has more than 25 years of finance and investment experience, most recently at Stifel, a global wealth management, investment banking and investment advisory firm. As a managing director in the consumer and retail sector, Growe covered food and tobacco stocks and offered guidance to institutional investors. He is the recipient of multiple awards for his work at Stifel, including several Financial Times/StarMine awards for earnings estimates and stock picking. He has also been honored by The Wall Street Journal with the Best on the Street Survey Award. Prior to Stifel, Growe was an analyst covering food, beverage and tobacco stocks with A.G. Edwards. He spent his early career in marketing at Anheuser-Busch.
Kelli Hammersmith leads all aspects of Advantage Solutions’ corporate narrative, including internal, external and executive communications.
Previously she led global executive and internal communications at Northern Trust. Earlier in her career, Hammersmith held communications leadership roles at Kohl’s and Molson Coors Beverage Company. She began her career as a journalist, reporting for television stations in Peoria, Illinois, and Milwaukee, where she also served as a bilingual reporter.
Dean Kaye is responsible for all aspects of finance and accounting, including financial business support, financial reporting, budgeting and forecasting, accounting, audit, tax, payroll and treasury.
Since joining Advantage in 2004, Kaye has held leadership roles in finance and business operations, including vice president of client services and business operations within the marketing segment. He is certified by the California Board of Accountancy with a CPA and earned his Chartered Management Accountant designation in the United Kingdom prior to relocating to the United States.
Alex Kelleher leads Advantage Intelligence, Advantage Solutions’ portfolio of technology- and data-driven solutions, which include software and services that pull together data and decisioning across the entire product journey from supply chain to consumer to drive manufacturers’ and retailers’ commercial success.
Kelleher came to Advantage in 2022 after serving as global chief marketing officer at Deloitte Digital. Earlier in his career, he founded four companies in the data and decisioning space, including AI ad platform Cognitive Match and Touch Clarity, a machine-learning optimization and analytics platform, which was acquired by Omniture (now Adobe).
Pamela Morris-Thornton leads all aspects of Advantage Solutions’ human resources function.
She previously spent 15 years at Panera Bread, including serving as the head of diversity, equity and inclusion and leading Panera’s talent acquisition, executive recruiting and the HR business partner practice. Earlier in her career, Morris-Thornton served in human resources leadership roles at the Metropolitan St. Louis Transit Agency and Graybar.
Jack Pestello leads the Advantage Sales division, which provides industry-leading headquarter sales services, retail services and business process outsourcing for brands and retailers across all channels of trade in the U.S. and Canada.
He most recently served as a senior advisor in Boston Consulting Group’s consumer practice, partnering primarily with retail and manufacturing CEOs on growth strategies, operational and organizational design, merchandising, sustainability and product development. Previously, Pestello was executive vice president and chief merchandising officer at Big Lots, where he led the omnichannel merchant team and was responsible for buying, planning, financial services, pricing and promotions. He spent seven years with Walmart, where he led an omnichannel portfolio across the company’s largest merchandise division. His time with Walmart also included leading private brands and leading merchandise strategies in the retailer’s international division. Pestello spent 20 years with Daymon in leadership roles overseeing private brands and business development. His global experience includes serving as the head of trade for Woolworth’s Australia Limited.
Bryce Robinson is responsible for oversight of Advantage Solutions’ legal department, providing counsel regarding a wide variety of business matters, including mergers and acquisitions, financing, international joint ventures, private equity transactions, compliance, corporate governance and commercial contracts.
Robinson’s career includes in-house and external counsel roles. Prior to joining Advantage, he was senior vice president, general counsel and secretary at InSight Health, a healthcare services company.
Michael Taylor leads Advantage Solutions’ global retailer-focused businesses and teams, including Daymon, SAS Retail Services, retailer experiential marketing services, shopper marketing agency Promopoint and The Data Council, a content creation and syndication agency.
Taylor, who previously served as president of Daymon, also leads Advantage’s Customer Collaboration Center of Excellence.
Earlier in his career, he held leadership positions spanning retail, business management and business development. Taylor began his career with PepsiCo Inc.
Francesco Tinto leads Advantage Solutions’ information technology team and Advantage Intelligence, a portfolio of software solutions and services that turn data into insights and strategies that drive product demand and distribution and supply chain efficiencies.
He most recently served as global chief information officer at Walgreens Boots Alliance, where he oversaw the company’s digital transformation, launching a world-class digital experience and customer insights platform that delivered personalized offerings and blended the online and offline customer experiences. He previously led the technology integration between Kraft and Heinz and, as the global chief information officer for the merged Kraft Heinz company, defined the go-forward information technology operating processes. Tinto began his career at Procter & Gamble in information technology and services in Rome.
Andrea Young has global oversight of Club Demonstration Services (CDS), Costco’s preferred event marketing provider in 12 countries and regions. She previously served as group president, Omnicommerce Solutions and co-president, Advantage Customer Experience.
Prior to joining Advantage in 2011 as senior vice president, experiential marketing, Young served in senior sales, operations and business integration roles at multiple agencies within Omnicom Group.
Young is a founding member of the Advantage Solutions Diversity, Equity & Inclusion board.
Dan Dougherty leads the Waypoint, Marlin Network agencies and CSSI culinary and marketing agency, plus the Advantage Military and Advantage Sales convenience store teams.
Before joining Waypoint, Dougherty owned and operated Omaha, Nebraska-based Dougherty Brokerage, one of the industry-leading regional foodservice sales agencies that came together to form Waypoint in January 2012.
He serves as the executive sponsor of Advantage’s Hope and Opportunity = Latinx Ambition (HOLA) employee resource group and has played a critical role in creating a dynamic and collaborative Waypoint workplace culture that highly values team members, clients and customers and creates consistent growth.
President, Global Business Operations, Club Demonstration Services
Amy Lang leads CDS, Costco’s preferred event marketing provider, whose team members deliver food sampling, product demonstrations and merchandising services that enhance the Costco member experience and drive sales in warehouses in 12 countries.
Lang joined Advantage after 16 years at Staples, where she had leadership roles across sales operations, store operations, human resources, marketing and strategy and played a key role in transforming the retail business following the company’s private equity purchase.
Victor Lee leads the commerce marketing division of Advantage Solutions. He is responsible for accelerating the agency’s omnichannel, digital commerce, media, and data and analytics strategies, services and solutions.
Lee’s career has focused on building brand-loyal global audiences; transforming legacy-based organizations into digital-first companies; driving category-leading sales programs; developing agile, analytic mindsets; and redefining creative and media-buying processes.
He previously served as chief marketing officer at Kin Insurance and RXBAR, where he was responsible for leading all marketing, communications, commercialization, shopper, media, product development and consumer insights. Earlier in his career he served as senior vice president, digital marketing at Hasbro and senior vice president, marketing at Digitas.
Corey Weiner is CEO and founder of Jun Group, an advertising technology company that was acquired by Advantage Solutions in 2018. Today, he leads the enterprise’s Media and Technology group, which combines the advertising technology, sampling and machine learning capabilities of Jun Group, Brandshare and Strong Analytics, and is focused on growing Advantage’s technology-led businesses through organic growth and by sourcing and completing mergers and acquisitions.
Weiner also provides guidance for enterprise-wide sales and automation efforts.
Michael Mish leads Advantage Solutions’ Integrated Agency Group, which includes AMP Agency and Upshot marketing agencies and Halverson Group consumer research and strategy consultancy.
He is a founding member of the Advantage Diversity, Equity & Inclusion board and serves as a DE&I board ambassador for Advantage’s Hope and Opportunity = Latinx Ambition (HOLA) employee resource group.
