2025 Star Women in Grocery Award Winner Ally Sanders-Witter (Q&A)
Ally Sanders-Witter
Senior Category Manager (Category Management Team Lead)
McCormick
Proudest career accomplishment?
My proudest career accomplishment has been building out a cross-functional task force to accelerate McCormick’s growth in a region where we have historically been underdeveloped. This project required collaborating effectively with different functional areas across the business, and tapping into how to bring together and motivate a diverse group of people to solve a complex business challenge. I am incredibly proud of how the team has come together and generated creative solutions that have achieved tremendous results. It is exciting to see how the team’s work has influenced and evolved our go-to-market strategies for this region.
What is the most exciting aspect of your role?
As someone who loves working with data and collaborating with others, the most exciting aspect of my current role is leveraging the wealth of data that my team has access to in order to make category growth recommendations that drive benefits for McCormick, our grocery customers and shoppers. Translating data into actionable insights that unlock business growth provides a platform for building strong strategic relationships with both internal and external partners, which makes the work truly rewarding.
How would you describe your leadership style?
My style is centred on situational leadership. To me, that means meeting my team where they are and supporting them to set them up for success—whether they’re doing something for the first time or the 10th time. In some cases, that means removing barriers and acting as a sounding board if a team member is comfortable running with a project. In cases where someone is building a new skill, this means being willing to roll up my sleeves and provide a higher level of support, guidance and feedback to enable their development. I believe in fostering a growth mindset for my team to enable them to continuously evolve their capabilities and achieve their potential.
What is your best quality or superpower?
My superpower is translating data into insights—taking something complicated and distilling it into a simple “so what” that is understandable to the audience, whether they are comfortable with data or not.
Most valuable career advice you’ve received?
“If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.” It is so important to be surrounded by people who support and challenge you to continue to grow both professionally and personally. I am a forever student at heart and greatly appreciate the opportunity to continuously learn at work—both from the projects that I work on and the people around me. This guidance has encouraged me to seek new challenges and build new skills, even when that requires me to step outside of my comfort zone. I also keep this philosophy in mind when hiring—building a team full of smart individuals with diverse backgrounds and experience enables us to continue to learn from one another, which, ultimately, strengthens our results.
How do you like to spend your time outside of work?
I love to be surrounded by family, friends and great food. On the weekends, I can generally be found exploring the independent coffee shops in my neighborhood with my husband and three-year-old daughter. With the promise of coffee for the adults and banana bread for the little one, it is our mutual happy place.
Anything else you’d like to share?
It is truly an honour to be recognized among this group of amazing women in the grocery industry. I am grateful to the mentors and leaders who I have had the privilege of working with and learning from in my career and strive to contribute to a supportive culture for women in the industry.
Click here for the full list of 2025 Star Women in Grocery Award winners.