2024 Star Women in Grocery Award Winner Ashley Melito (Q&A)

Ashley Melito

Vice-President, Sales
Mars Pet Nutrition Canada

How did you get your start in the CPG business? 

I grew up in Alberta, so a lot of my counterparts after graduation were exploring the oil and gas industry, whereas I was always keeping one eye on the world of consumer packaged goods (CPG). Although I had no experience or prior knowledge of the CPG world, I was incredibly passionate about brands and brand development, as well as motivated by the opportunity to work with products that have a genuine impact on people’s lives. While a lot of the major CPG companies have outstanding recruitment programs, being based in Alberta didn’t offer the same exposure to those recruiters. I always found it funny in my early career hearing my colleagues talk about how they were recruited, and hand selected before graduation, while I was out in Edmonton banging down the door and begging large CPGs to hire me.

What keeps you motivated at work?

For me, it’s all about building a culture that focuses on development. Seeing my team members accomplish something they never thought was possible and pushing themselves in their development is really the biggest motivation a leader can have. I get my energy from being a part of enabling someone within the organization to achieve their goals and what they’ve set out to accomplish. My team laughs, but I always ask: “what do you need to be true in order for you to make this happen?” I want to make sure I enable my team to succeed. 

What is the biggest challenge you've faced in your career? 

I’m sure it’s still fresh in everyone’s minds but managing through COVID and bridging the transition of the change to remote work, supply disruptions and overall uncertainties in business. All of this was compounded by balancing the personal struggles all of us went through during that time.

What would you say is your leadership philosophy?

When I think about my philosophy, it’s around being a talent-first leader, who truly believes in the power of human connection. My focus is always on the role I play in fostering connections to help make people’s lives a bit better. The strength of what we can achieve together far outweighs that of individual accomplishments. In terms of my leadership style—it’s centred around creating a strong foundation of empowerment for my teams to lead with confidence.

What is a career highlight?

Moreso than one major accomplishment, my career highlight has been being able to work for and learn from some of the best CPG organizations in the world. I started my career at L’Oréal Canada, and to this day, feel strongly that L’Oréal excels at knowing and understanding the consumer. They are masters at marketing and continue to raise the bar year-over-year. I moved from L’Oréal to Henkel, which allowed for a school in best-in-class financial diligence and rigorous P&L management. Now, at Mars, I feel like I’ve found the sweet spot of a customer-centric organization, balancing the financial performance with the backing of incredible, world-class brands, and rooted in Five Principles that we use as the base of every decision we make. I’m fortunate to have been able to learn and be a part of these three organizations. 

What do you like most about your job? 

It is a very cliché answer, but it has to be the people. I’ve been so fortunate in my career to have been surrounded by an incredible caliber of people who are not only extremely talented professionally, but interesting in their personal endeavours, too. The people I have around me are constantly raising the bar—it keeps me striving and growing.

What do you like to do when not working?

I’m in the season of life of raising young kids, so while I have a few hobbies and activities outside of work, such as playing tennis, really my out of work time is spent whenever I can with my husband and children. Sometimes that is higher quality time spent together, like a recent visit out West to see my parents over spring break, and some of it is throwing a sandwich to the backseat on the way to a baseball game after a long day. Either way, in this time of life, I am extremely intentional about prioritizing time spent with family.

Click here for the full list of 2024 Star Women in Grocery award winners.