Simone joined High Impact in August 2024. Her focus will be on Growth and Development.

Simone began her retail career in 1993, joining Unilever South Africa, as Skin Care and Cleanse Category Manager. After completing Category roles across Personal Care Trade Marketing, she then led the Personal Care Trade Marketing Division for Unilever SA.

In 2007, she relocated her family to another province in SA, Gauteng. With this move, she joined a top SA Retailer, Pick and Pay Stores, leading their newly formed Category Management Division, focusing on Pets, Baby, Beauty, Personal Care, Pharmacy and Liquor. Soon after, Pick and Pay strategically moved to centralize their five buying regions, as well as launch into Category Buying. Simone led this initiative for PnP Stores, together with their chosen consultant group. During her last role at Pick and Pay, as General Manager Business Development and Retail Strategy, she was a part of the team that launched their loyalty program, Smart Shopper.

Post Walmart’s acquisition of Massmart Holding SA, Simone had an opportunity to join Massmart in their Head office division as Retail Strategy lead. Her focus at Massmart, was on working with various Massmart Banner leadership teams to implement Private Brands, New Field Initiatives and Shopper Marketing. In 2015, she received an opportunity to move to Walmart USA Home office in Bentonville, to be part of the WM US Private Brand Food, Consumables, Health, and Wellness leadership team. Her children, then 13 and 16, joined her in relocating to NWA in 2016.

After leading the OTC/Health and Wellness PB team and learning valuable new skills through Covid, which highly impacted OTC core categories, particularly in global Pharma supply chains and manufacturing, she became VP of Private Brands Consumables Health and Wellness in early 2022. This role gave her the opportunity to lead Business and Product Development across leading USA Private Brands such as Great Value, Equate, Parents Choice, Spring Valley, Vibrant Life, Reli On and Ol’ Roy.

Simone loves being outdoors, discovering new travel destinations with her son Christopher and daughter Catherine, and visiting friends and family around the world.

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