2026 Star Women in Convenience winner: Lauren Van Dam
Lauren Van Dam
Customer development leader
Mars Snacking
What are you most proud of during the last 12-18 months?
We just launched an amazing product in January with Skittle’s Pop’d Freeze Dried. It’s been a huge success, and we are excited to have a new and different format with the original taste everyone loves from Skittles.
What do you like most about your job?
Brands. I love brands and the history of building brands and the power of building consumer attachment to them leading to purchase.
Biggest career challenge?
Not surprisingly, COVID has been the biggest challenge so far. Certain categories saw a dramatic drop in consumption and ‘breath freshening’ was one of them. Gum is a huge part of our portfolio and navigating through that time was challenging. The category bounced back, but living through those years was a new experience for most of us.
What excites you most about the future of this channel?
I am excited to see the direction that C&G takes with more electric vehicles and charging stations in the future. We know that there will be more dwell time as the vehicle charges, so how do we drive those customers into the store and what kind of experience will it be.
How do you define yourself as a leader?
One of my values is mutuality. I believe in building lasting relationships that respect the goals of the customer and the suppliers and ultimately the consumer.
Nomination highlights
As a national customer development leader supporting Circle K and Shell, Laura Van Dam consistently drives meaningful impact across the Canadian convenience channel. She is highly respected by her customers for her strategic thinking, collaborative approach and deep understanding of evolving shopper behaviour. By staying ahead of consumer and channel trends, she turns insights into practical customer actions that strengthen category performance and help grow total convenience sales. She has led several impactful national customer development initiatives with Circle K and Shell, always approaching the business with a category-first mindset focused on long-term growth. She identified the growing consumer shift toward dollar and discount retailers early and proactively partnered with both retailers to refine pricing and promotional strategies that helped win shoppers back to convenience. In her role, she is responsible for leading customer development and category growth across Circle K, Shell and the Core-Mark distributor partnership. She oversees customer planning, category discussions, pricing and promotional strategy, assortment recommendations and in-store execution initiatives. She also plays a key role in aligning internal stakeholders to successfully deliver joint business plans and commercial priorities. Her ability to anticipate market trends and translate them into actionable strategies has strengthened customer relationships and improved commercial performance for the company.
Click here for a full list of the 2026 Star Women in Convenience winners
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