2025 Grocery Industry Icons & Innovators

Gary Hawkins has been helping the retail industry create the future for over twenty five years. As a retailer, he pioneered loyalty and shopper insights;that work, in turn, helping create and power the development of shopper marketing, and then sophisticated marketing personalization two decades ago. Leading technology’s growth curve, his journey has included blazing a path for biometrics, computer vision, digital engagement, artificial intelligence, and more.

As a strategic advisor, Hawkins has had the privilege of working with retailers, wholesalers, CPG brand manufacturers, and tech companies, in over 20 countries across five continents. Companies like Kroger, ASDA, Mitsubishi, Lawson, Hy-Vee, M&M Food Market, Wakefern, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Retalix, RetailNext, NCR, and many others. More recently, his work has expanded into the growing convergence of the massive food and healthcare industries.

Along the way he’s decimated countless industry practices that have constrained innovation, while on a relentless march into the future. And that leadership continues today, as Hawkins leverages his deep retail experience, knowledge of human behavior, technology expertise, and view to the future, to help retailers change paths, moving from the linear world of yesterday to the exponential world of tomorrow.

His expansive industry view and early insight into disruptive technology makes him a sought-after keynote speaker at conferences in the U.S. and around the world. Hawkins is the author of Building the Customer Specific Retail Enterprise;Customer Intelligence;Retail in the Age of I, and Bionic Retail, along with myriad articles and white papers. Hawkins lives in Colorado with his wife Heather, and Remington, their Bernese Mountain Dog.