The Leaders: Lessons from Ellen Thompson, general manager, Mars Snacking Canada
How did you get your start in the business?
I’ve always been interested in products and advertising. As a little kid, I used to send recommendations to companies on how they could improve their toys and advertising ideas. So, I feel it was always in me to be a CPG marketer, but I didn’t start off that way. Out of college, I began working in government consulting but I knew that wasn’t the right path for me, so I went back to business school to get an MBA in marketing and then found my way into brand management.
What is your leadership story?
I started my career in CPG in marketing. Eventually, I moved over to Mars and one of the beautiful things about Mars is they encourage cross-functional learning. At one point my manager said, “Do you want to be a CMO or do you want to be a general manager?” And I said, “I think I’m more of a general manager.” And he said, “Great, you should go to sales.” And so, I took the opportunity; I went out to run the PetSmart team in the U.S. for our U.S. pet nutrition business, which was a huge shift for me. It was a great experience and the most pivotal point for me in my leadership journey because I had been a CPG marketer for 11 years. I was super comfortable; I knew what I was doing and then I landed in sales and I had no idea what I was doing. I thought every experience with the customer was super high-stakes and it was very unnerving, but I had a great team and learned a lot in that experience. I then spent the next seven years growing my way up through the sales organization in the U.S. pet nutrition business and became the general manager of our global Fishcare business, which is a small business that Mars has. Then, I made my way here to Canada in September of 2023 and I’ve been in this role since.
READ: Q&A with 2026 Star Women in Grocery Award Winner Ellen Thompson
With all those experiences, do you feel like a well-rounded leader?
I feel that as you’re going through each experience, you don’t realize the tools and the skillset that you’re picking up. The advice I give people [coming up] is that your leadership journey usually takes a little longer than what your younger self imagines, but I do feel like all those tools and skills [I gained] really prepared me for the more senior, general manager roles.
How do you build resilience—both personally and within your teams?
That’s a tough one. Many of us, including myself, tend to be perfectionists. So, sometimes when things don’t go exactly right, it’s hard to take a step back and learn from those experiences. On our team, we always want to make sure we bring forward things that aren’t working, where we have concerns and where we have conflict, because a lot of times that’s where you get to the best discussions and learn that even if something doesn’t go right, you can always recover. Resiliency is a really important tool to have because once you figure out that you know how to handle things, you’re able to ride the waves a little easier.
What are the habits and routines that have had the biggest impact on your success?
I wish I had better habits and more routines. But, one of the things I’ve learned as I’ve gotten a little older and more experienced is to be kinder to myself. When I was younger, I would rehash every experience, focus on the negatives—and that led me to not having the best self-confidence. So, one of the habits I’ve trained myself to do is focus more on the positive and not to ruminate over every negative thing that happens because normally you’re the only one remembering it.
READ: Mars Snacking North America's Jessica Adelman shares her resilience mandate
What is one habit you’d recommend to a new leader?
Take your vacations and take care of yourself, for two reasons: One, you need to give yourself time and space to disconnect, but also if you’re always connected, then your team thinks that’s the expectation when they go on vacation. So, you’re not only giving yourself time and space, but you’re also setting the tone for your team and you’re also showing them that you trust them and that you’re OK to step away—you know they’ve got it. So, when you take your vacation, give yourself that time, but also show your team that trust.
You have a degree in psychology. How has that helped you in your roles?
I think a degree in psychology has helped a lot, especially in CPG because the consumer is the most important thing. Our consumer is the one who makes the decisions about what brands they buy and how they feel about our products. Understanding how people think and what drives them and motivates them is really important. And at the end of the day, I feel that psychology was a great degree to just teach curiosity, and I feel like that natural curiosity has served me well across my experience in CPG.
How do you lead differently today than you did, say, a decade ago?
Now, I am way more comfortable in myself. And being more comfortable in myself, I’m a much more authentic leader than I was 10 years ago. Because I’m more confident, I don’t feel like I’m putting up any fronts and I’m comfortable to take criticism, I’m comfortable to be vulnerable and I’m comfortable to make sure my team understands they can come to me—that I have challenges, they have challenges and we’re going to figure it out together. And I think vulnerability builds a lot of trust and it’s made me a much stronger leader than I was 10 years ago when I felt like I had to have every answer. I felt like I had to be the smartest person in the room. Now, I’m super comfortable not being the smartest person in the room. I think the best part about being a leader is building a team around you that is way more intelligent and can be much stronger in all of their functions and can add way more to the team.
READ: Canada’s booming snack market moves toward functional health and bold flavours
What have failures or setbacks in your career taught you?
When I went to sales, I was not successful in the first year. It was really hard. I don’t think I understood all of the elements of the role, but in year two and in year three, I think those little setbacks and being uncomfortable in those situations taught me that I could learn and that I could be agile and that I could pick up new things. And even though sometimes you have a bit of a setback, a lot of times that setback is what you need to accelerate and I think it’s all about how you handle the setback. Either it becomes something that’s debilitating and it’s all you focus on or you take the feedback, you decide you can make a change and then you get those learnings and accelerate from there.
What do you want to accomplish in your role at Mars?
I think it has probably changed over the past three years. When I came in, my goal was to take a business that was already doing really well and continue to accelerate our world-class brands. But with the recent acquisition of Kellanova, my goal now is to make sure I leave a legacy of a combined Canadian business—bringing these two iconic organizations together. They’re both purpose driven and we have two strong legacies and I’d love to leave a business that feels like one, that feels like it’s much better together than it was apart and that we’re growing all of these amazing iconic brands in a truly Canadian way.
This article was first published in Canadian Grocer’s August 2026 issue.
