Summary
Melissa Baldwin is a senior retail media leader with nine years of experience building and scaling retailer-owned advertising businesses across major chains and platforms. Currently leading Big Box Retail Media at Google, she blends commercial strategy, tech partnerships, and data-driven measurement to drive retailer and brand monetization. Previously she grew Kohl’s retail media into a $45M channel with sustained double-digit growth and led Criteo’s North American retail relationships, advising on product, operations, and co-op spend. Known for forging C-suite relationships and cross-functional alliances, she pushes transparency and offline measurement to prove incrementality and unlock new revenue streams. Melissa pairs a product-minded approach to ad tech and SaaS partnerships with hands-on P&L and sales leadership, and she’s equally comfortable briefing CMOs or negotiating vendor integrations. A caffeine-dependent strategist who routinely pilots retailer-sold training and launches new partners, she thrives at the intersection of retail, data, and media.
9 years of coding experience