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WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — As senior vice president of marketing for Hy-Vee, Amy Wittry is focused on increasing brand loyalty for the $13 billion grocery retailer.
“My role is to be the voice of the customer — understanding them and how they engage with our brand — and creating greater customer loyalty and trust in our brand to drive sales growth,” says Wittry.
While her career with the company began at the young age of 14, she grew up knowing the Hy-Vee brand since childhood.
“My grandfather was a store director, and everyone in my family has at some point worked for Hy-Vee,” says Wittry. “My memories are of going to Hy-Vee and getting a free cookie, walking around the store and engaging with employees. This is where my love for the brand started.”
Amy Wittry
After graduating from college, Wittry joined Hy-Vee full time, working in various store management positions. She also held a variety of leadership roles in food service; training and education; employee engagement; and helping lead Hy-Vee’s Customer Care center. In 2018, Wittry was promoted to assistant vice president of advertising and later led Hy-Vee’s private brands. She moved into her current position as senior vice president of marketing in 2022.
“Having had all of those different experiences has definitely helped me in the role I’m in today — from working on the front lines at retail to focusing on the customer experience,” says Wittry.
In her role, Wittry helps bring the Hy-Vee brand to life every day. Her efforts have helped the 94-year-old brand strengthen its reputation for quality, variety, convenience, healthy lifestyles, culinary expertise and superior customer service.
Most recently, Wittry helped launch Hy-Vee Perks — the retailer’s new, upgraded loyalty program that brings more value to customers with special pricing on hundreds of items, fuel savings and other exclusive offers. Wittry played an instrumental role in the rollout of this program by promoting the ease in enrolling and the significant membership savings through a series of channels including direct mailers, targeted emails, app notifications, digital ads and in-store signage.
To promote the new program and its benefits to customers during their shopping experience, Wittry and her team supplied each store with a Hy-Vee Perks-branded display kit to create an in-store sign-up destination. Each Hy-Vee Perks area is then staffed by employees to help customers enroll and begin taking advantage of immediate savings.
To showcase the value of the program, Wittry’s team developed PERKS Prices signage to highlight the new special pricing structure. This allowed customers to see the immediate savings of the membership at the time of their product selection.
