Women of Influence by SheSpeaks

Cheers to Growth: Leading with Data, Trends, and Influence

• SheSpeaks, Inc.

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In this episode, we’re joined by Amberle Thompson, Senior Sales Director for Walmart and Sam’s Club at The Heineken Company, overseeing a team that helps ensure products make it to shelves across the country.

Amberle shares her journey into the CPG and alcohol industry, demystifies how distribution works in the U.S., and explores how data and consumer trends drive innovation. She also reflects on raising three daughters while building her career, the power of networks, and why influence is knowing when you have it—and when you need to build it.

Episode Highlights

  • How Amberle uses real-time data and consumer trends to guide product innovation, like Dos Equis Lime & Salt Zero.
  • The unique challenges of alcohol distribution and why the U.S. three-tier system matters for brands like Heineken.
  • The “COVID bump” in alcohol sales—and how the industry is right-sizing post-pandemic.
  • Why looking at data and trends is Amberle’s favorite part of leading in CPG.
  • Amberle’s perspective on raising daughters while modeling leadership and career growth.
  • Why building your network is critical—and the advice Amberle gives young professionals about picking up the phone.
  • A fresh take on influence: knowing where you have it, where you need it, and how to leverage your network to create meaningful change.
  • Why Amberle believes that to lead effectively, you can’t—and shouldn’t—do it alone.

Amberle shares real-world insights for navigating leadership and driving innovation within and outside the CPG industry.

Links and Resources 

Connect with Amberle Thompson on LinkedIn

Learn more about The Heineken Company

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Speaker 1:

Don't skip the lunches and building your network, or don't not ask the questions because you think you already know the answer, because you will be so much better off and you will go so much further if you can bring others along with you.

Speaker 2:

This season on the Women of Influence podcast, we have been talking with women who are working in industries that we find fascinating and also have an impact on women who are buying these products day to day. Today's guest is Amberlee Thompson. She is a senior sales leader at Heineken, the brewing company, and maybe a product that you have bought before or you certainly have seen before, and I really enjoyed this conversation because Amberlee and I are very similar in the sense that we both love understanding consumer trends and why people shop the way they do, buy the way they do and what is impacting that. We talk today about how the alcohol business has changed from the COVID days, from before COVID to after COVID and now we are in a period of COVID being over and how has alcohol consumption changed, what things have impacted it, and what I love about this conversation is how deeply Amberlee understands those insights of what's going on with how people are thinking and buying within the spirits and the alcohol category and also helping to develop products that are non-alcoholic, and thinking about how companies like Heineken do that. Not only do we talk about those elements of the industry, but we also delve into Amberlee's perspective on how she thinks about developing talent within her team and how she thinks about what influence means within her role. I love her explanation, or her definition, which you will hear in the episode, of how she defines what influence means to her. I have not heard before, and I have heard lots of people talk about influence in the past and what it means to them, and I really love that. So please look out for that in the episode. I think you're going to find this episode very interesting if you are someone who has, you know, purchased products in this category before. The other thing that you'll note about Amberlee is she's not only worked at a big company like Heineken, but she's also worked at the maker of Lysol and Mucinex and also at Kraft. So she's really had very deep experience in understanding what motivates people when they're thinking about buying products, and I think you'll find this conversation super interesting to listen to.

Speaker 2:

I enjoyed having it. With that, I'm going to let you hear my conversation with the wonderful Amberlee Thompson. Here we go. Amberlee, welcome to the show. Thank you, Alisa. Good to be here. I am excited to chat with you today. We were just talking about how we randomly ran into each other. I was on a business trip to Arkansas and happened to be in the same office building that you were in and we ran into each other in person, which was lovely because we'd only met via video chat. But there we were in person and now here we are recording. It's great to have you. I'm excited to chat with you. I am so fascinated by the spirits alcohol business and I know that that is the world that you are in. You are the Senior Sales Director for Walmart and Sam's Club for Heineken. Can you tell us a little bit about your role and what your day-to-day responsibilities look like?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I've been in the CPG industry for about 12 years in a variety of roles and, as you mentioned, I'm currently the Senior Sales Director for Heineken. So I lead a sales team that calls on both Walmart and Sam's Club and we work with over 300 distributors, 200 sales colleagues within the organization to help ensure that our Heineken products and other brands that we carry are on Walmart and Sam's Club shelves every day. So really, what I think to do is I just like to serve our customers, think about the way that the industry is changing and look for ways to grow our business with our partners. You know, on a daily basis, I look at trends, I look at data very heavily. I work with our team to create programs and promotions that support our products. I evaluate new items that are potential innovation that would be interesting to consumers, and then, on a regular basis, we meet with our Walmart and Sam's partners to discuss these opportunities.

Speaker 2:

I have a few questions just to clarify, to make sure that we understand some of the terminology you just talked about. Tell us in this context you said you work with distributors. What is a distributor for those of us who are not familiar with distributors in the alcohol industry?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so the alcohol industry is very unique in the US. We, as a Heineken producer and supplier, we cannot sell directly to our retailers like Walmart and Sam's Club. We have to go through a three-tier network, which is the distributor. So Heineken sells our products to a distributor and then our distributor turns around and sells that product to Walmart, sam's Club, costco, etc. It's a DSD model and it dates all the way back to prohibition. So it's really about doing business in the legal capacity with our distributors to get our products to Walmart and then eventually to our customers.

Speaker 2:

So I don't think that most people understand that. I mean, I would say that probably a lot of people listening are consumers or purchasers of alcohol but may not know that there is this very specific and unique distribution model for alcohol. Just in comparison, let's say I'm somebody who sells chocolate to Walmart, right, I don't have a distributor necessarily in between me and Walmart, right, I don't necessarily have to work through a distributor to get my product on the shelf at Walmart or Sam's Club or any other retail for that matter. But for a alcohol brand like Heineken, like any of the others, there is a required kind of middle layer, which are the distributors that you have to work through them in order to get product on the shelf.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and see, what makes it even more complex is the distributors only have rights to sell alcohol in territories that go down to the county level. So I might have I have over 300 distributors and they don't overlap in geography. So I'll have, you know, a distributor for Northwest Arkansas and they can only sell our products in Northwest Arkansas. They cannot sell them in Texas. Those rights go to a distributor like Andrews in Dallas. So it's very complex because of the number of teams and individuals that we have to work with every day to sell one vision or one goal or one growth model. It's very, very complex and keeps us very busy.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I can imagine, and thank you for giving us the 101 on that. I have a dear friend who works in the spirits business and when she explained this to me years ago I had no idea that there was this very different model. So you also mentioned that innovation is a part of what you get to do and thinking about like, okay, what types of products do you decide to move forward and you look at trends. Can you talk just a little bit about how you think about that?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that is my favorite part of CPG consumer packaged goods business that I've been in for the last 12 years, especially working with Walmart and Sam's Club, who has some of the best data you know in the world, quite frankly, we can see what is selling by day by hour, by region. We can see what types of products are selling well or growing. And when you think about how to innovate and how to be smart about it, the best thing to do is think about the consumer and understand using the data, like if there's certain flavors that are starting to grow, if there's certain types of beer that is showing a lot of momentum, we can take that back to our internal teams and share that information and have a discussion with R&D about. You know what's the next evolution of that product? Or the next thing we can do. I would say one I'm most proud of we launched a Dos Equis Lime and Salt Zero a couple years ago from the Walmart trend data.

Speaker 1:

So we found that non-alcoholic beer was growing pretty fast and fairly underdeveloped in the market, and when we looked at the entire beer category, we also noticed what was missing from the non-alcoholic segment was flavor. And so, again, looking at the data, looking at what was missing understanding that lime, which doesn't seem like rocket science, but was a core flavor in beer. It brought us, you know, the insights to put together a story that ultimately created a product Dos Equis, lime and Salt Zero that's now selling in over a thousand Walmarts and it's doing very well. And it's because we can use that data, think through the consumer trends and find opportunities to grow the business. So that's a fun one, but that's what we work on all the time. We work on planning. The innovation process takes a lot of time. So you know you might get an idea and it's a year really before it gets into market and it takes a lot of time and a lot of people to get that done. But definitely a very cool aspect of our business.

Speaker 2:

I love that and I love that example. Thank you for sharing this. So is the Dos Equis version. Is that alcoholic or non-alcoholic?

Speaker 1:

This one's non-alcoholic. The innovation was non-alcoholic.

Speaker 2:

That's amazing and I love that you were able to kind of keep your eyes peeled for that stuff, because that's certainly something that I know people are talking about. And then also one of the things that always fascinates me about the COVID situation. This again goes back to that friend that I mentioned earlier. Yeah, she worked at a spirits company. She still worked when everyone else was on lockdown and her office not only was open but they were considered I forgot what she called it maybe essential workers, because the alcohol, the spirits industry, I don't know if it was technically called essential, but they went to work and I remember thinking that it was such an interesting thing that there were certain industries that were considered essential. So I'm curious since COVID happened, were there any specific trends that you're seeing as an impact of the COVID?

Speaker 1:

years. So I was with a different company during the 2020 and joined Heineken in the last three years, but prior to that I was actually with Heineken before COVID. So I have quite a bit of experience in the alcohol industry. But my COVID years are actually spent with Reckitt on the OTC cough cold flu side, which was essential during that time, the OTC medicines and everything like that.

Speaker 1:

We look at the beer industry right now and you hear the news articles like oh, it's in decline, like, oh, it's struggling, there's less consumers drinking, and that's partly true, but really you need to take a look at the years before covid to understand what's really going on. So within the alcohol industry back 20 years prior to covid, we have seen very steady growth in alcoholic beverage. And then you came to 2020 when everybody was in lockdown and everybody was staying at home with extra income and the alcoholic beverage industry just boomed. We had fantastic years in 2020, 2021. And in 2022, we started getting some pot chain challenges. But that volume increase over those years when everyone was staying at home with extra income was quite remarkable.

Speaker 1:

So, what we're seeing now is kind of like a right sizing of the industry In 2024, last year we actually sold more beverage alcohol in the US than we did in 2019. So it does tell me that we're still on that very stable growth path. We're just kind of right sizing from the COVID boom. It's just we tend to think short, short-term year-to-year and we don't back up very often and really understand how those trends have just shifted.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's interesting because when you tend to have something that is out of pocket or out of pattern in terms of growth and then you go back to more of a stable growth, it always looks like. I remember one of my first bosses when I was at a large company that he said this thing that has stuck with me happiness is a low base and in the sense that when your base is pretty low and then you get growth, you look amazing, you look like a hero because your growth is yeah, times are good.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you're so great.

Speaker 2:

You're breaking your arm, patting yourself on the back, but when you're working in something that already is at a pretty stable and steady growth and then you are looking to show incrementality, I mean, it makes so much sense how people are viewing it now because you did have this probably unnatural bump during COVID in growth. But then looking at growth compared to that is probably not the best way to look at it. It's probably better to look back to, as you said before. That bump happened prior to COVID. So you mentioned, just as you were talking, that this is your second stint working at Heineken. You took a little bit of a break, but let's take a step back. You have spent a lot of your career at large brands like Heineken. You mentioned Reckitt. For those who are not familiar with Reckitt, they are a maker of a lot of products that you will know, like Lysol and Mucinex. These are all, in different ways, consumer packaged goods, meaning they're products that consumers like me, everyday people, are buying. What drew you to that industry?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's funny you mentioned you already pulled it out the math, the trends, the looking at data. What brought me to the industry initially was that. So you know, through high school and college I never had a clear path of what I wanted to do, but I always loved math and I always loved statistics and economics, and I just found myself in business classes and I found myself at the U of A getting my MBA in business, which opened up some doors for me, and so that's kind of what really got me on the path that I got into today was taking those opportunities, finding an open door with Kraft Foods at the University of Arkansas, getting an internship there, and then what really, I'd say, hooked me was the ability to do work that had such large impact. So I'll back way up, as I was finishing college, I worked for a very small supplier called Outdoor Cap and we built baseball caps and headwear for different suppliers, and I was on the Walmart account at the time and I was working with a factory in Bangladesh.

Speaker 1:

We had factories all over the world to develop ladies golf caps and this was my first like real taste of CPG to develop a line of ladies golf caps that we eventually took in and sold to Walmart. And then seeing those golf caps on the shelf in the sporting goods section at Walmart across the country was, quite frankly, jaw-dropping. I just could not believe that the work that I had put in to find the fabric, to find the logos, to work with the graphic designers we had to fax information to the factories because there was an email back and build a product that we could take to market, and it was very successful. So I think that's really what hooked me is like the idea the work that I did could matter at such scale and I just enjoyed doing it. So I've kind of been in it ever since.

Speaker 2:

I love that, that idea that you know having an impact and being able to see something kind of come to fruition. It also has a little bit of that maker mentality. There are people that are kind of known as makers and they really love the idea of being able to come from having the idea to actually seeing that product come to fruition. That sounds like it tracks.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it was a formative moment for me, for sure, and those caps stayed on the shelf for like three or four years after I left that company. They were very good, I love that.

Speaker 2:

So in terms of then thinking about the elements of your life that are outside of the workplace, I know we were just talking before we started recording that you had a business trip recently out to California, I believe and you were able to take your daughters. So can you talk a little bit about you have three daughters, we mentioned there, and how old are they?

Speaker 1:

Four, seven and nine. I mean such great we're in the thick of it.

Speaker 2:

Yep, yeah, you really are in the thick of it. I also have only daughters, and I do think that there's something that's interesting for you know women like us who are working have a professional life but also have daughters, and I'm curious to hear your perspective on how you think the professional world might evolve for their generation. I have spent time especially as my daughters, you know, started getting older really being fascinated, going to the trends, conversation like how things evolve and you know where there are different cycles with different generations and in terms of how they want to work. But how do you think that the professional world might evolve for your daughters?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's such a good question. Like I said, I jumped into CPG and found my own drive, but then having daughters and letting them see what I do, that adds a layer, right. I want to show them that what they want to do is possible, and so that's just another reason that I'm excited to come to work every day and do what I do, but I don't know how it's going to change. One of the things that I've thought about is people can be influencers and marketers at such a young age. Now they can find their voice, and we have the technology to give them their voice. So that's exciting.

Speaker 1:

And then I even go back even further and think about how, like I said, I was faxing a factory to tell them instructions on developing a product, and now we're using Excel and then we're moving into AI. So I just think technology is going to keep going, but our kids they seem to pick it up faster and faster too, so it'll be interesting to see how they work. I hope they still meet in offices and face-to-face. I hope they still come together in the workplace in the future, I guess. At minimum I hope that. You know, our younger generation knows that they can chase their dreams, and it's even more possible now for them to take on whatever they find passion for.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, you mentioned this word as you were just talking the word influence, and this podcast is called Women of Influence. I'm curious if you can share your thoughts on what does influence mean to you?

Speaker 1:

When I first saw your question, I thought influence is really about knowing when you have it, and where you have it and also where you need it, and so you know, there's cases, like as a mom, where I have influence, whether I want it or not, you know, and I think how you show up every day for people that you have influence over takes extra thought, and I think I think you need to be very smart in how you're influencing, because you are.

Speaker 1:

And then there's influence in the workplace and, as I've developed my personally over several years, know that there's settings where I have lots of influence, where it's similar, where I carefully act in a way that I want that influence to go. But then there's times where you need influence and you need to build it and in those times, as I've learned, you really have to leverage your network. Understand when you need support, understand when you don't have the influence, but you need someone on your side that does have influence to help get something done. So, more so than just influence in and of itself, it's knowing, building a trusted network, leaning on others, not trying to do it all myself, but helping to drive influence through building strong networks shared, because I think, in this day and age where everyone thinks, well, I just have to figure out how I influence, as opposed to recognizing that by building relationships with others.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes it's not about you directly influencing something. It's about you having a relationship or a connection that is able to influence that thing that you are looking to ultimately influence. I think that is such a brilliant way to think about the influence that it is not just about what you as a person are influencing within your world, but how the whole ecosystem works. So my last question for you, which I love to end the podcast with, is if you could go back to give your younger self, who is just getting started, one piece of smart advice or important advice. What would that be?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, this is very connected to the last question because, like I said, in my personal development, building my network has been such a huge step in the last four to five years. I would tell myself to not overlook building your network. So, as a young professional, I don't think I'm that different from other people. You want to prove yourself right. You want to do everything on your own, show that you can. You've got a challenge in front of you. You kind of want to pull up your bootstraps and show the world what you're capable of. And I have really found that I have gained so much more by engaging other people, other leaders, showing you know transparently that not only do I need the help but I also can value the different opinions of others to really come to better outcomes as a leader. It takes that because if you build something on your own, then you're the only one following you. But if you pose a challenge or a problem or an opportunity to say my team and we together come up with the solution or the next step, then I've got buy-in from others and we have a better outcome because we had more people identifying potential pitfalls and kind of looking at the problem holistically. So if I were, and I do tell this to any young person that I get the chance to intern or hire. Don't skip the lunches and building your network or don't not ask the questions because you think you already know the answer, because you will be so much better off and you will go so much further if you can bring others along with you and so missing out on that is a huge opportunity that, like I said, I always make sure to teach along the way because I feel like I've learned it and seen the benefits of it.

Speaker 1:

Just one other piece of that that I see in young professionals is the not willing to pick up the phone and call. Like we've come to COVID and we have to schedule everything out to have meetings and especially, like I said, I work with 300 distributors Letting go of fear, picking up the phone and calling somebody doesn't have to be scheduled. That creates relationships over time and that builds your network. So it's a very simple thing to do but it seems scary. So, in addition to just don't overlook building your network, use simple things like getting over your fear, pick up the phone, ask a question. Those are the things that are going to move you further than you could ever move on your own. So that's what I'll leave you with, but those are kind of my thoughts as I've come full circle in the last four to five years.

Speaker 2:

I think it is such excellent advice and the notion, as you were talking about the first part of this, about not overlooking the value of building out your network.

Speaker 2:

I think the reason, too, that it's so easy for young professionals who are just starting to overlook it is because you're mostly an individual contributor at that point, meaning what you can accomplish is generally very much driven by what you personally can do. But I think that the people who are young and look at their roles as it's not just about what I can accomplish, but if I can build out relationships with other people, then I can be more successful, because maybe I'm in marketing and I went to lunch with somebody in operations. I now have an understanding of how their world impacts what I do and there's so much value in being successful, and especially, I think at big companies, but I think at all companies and I think someone who's young, who gets the chance to do that, will stand out so much if you are able to get a broader perspective on what's happening, which means you have to talk to other people.

Speaker 1:

You have to engage. It's as simple as go to the company lunch. Your inbox will be there when you get back. You know it's hard to step away sometimes, but yeah, take those moments and don't overlook them as not valuable, because over time they become very valuable.

Speaker 2:

To the other point you mentioned about just picking up the phone or just like directly reaching out so important and it saves so much time. I mean, think about, like, sometimes, the back and forth we have with an email versus just picking up the phone and being able to say hey, listen, this is what I'm thinking and you have like that back and forth dialogue that gets you to resolution faster. If you even just think about it from an efficiency standpoint, do it.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. Think of how much it takes to schedule a meeting right. That takes like three emails Totally. Yeah, no, that's what I tell. You know my team all the time I'm like reach out directly nine times out of 10, you'll get a hold of them and then, like you said, you're working much more efficiently because you have the answer or you've been able to get the feedback you know on the spot, and that you can continue to move forward.

Speaker 2:

I love that Well. Amberlee Thompson, thank you so much for spending this time with me today and sharing your experience. I think you have so much valuable advice and insights for people and it sounds like it's very consistent with kind of what your interests are, too, in understanding the data and the trends. I love that we had a chance to chat today, so thank you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you. Thank you for the time and very fun to meet you this week in person, so hopefully we'll run into each other again sometime soon. Yes,

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Aliza Freud

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