CJ is named Businesswoman of the Future

Congratulations to our Category Director for Emerging Markets, CJ Antal-Smith, who was named the Woman of the Future in Business and Finance in this week’s Woman of the Future Awards 2011.

CJ’s award recognises the work she does in identifying and sourcing new products that meet the demands of our constantly evolving customer base. She joined Asda in 1998 on the Graduate programme and quickly became one of the youngest graduates to be promoted to a buyer position.

She rose quickly through the business and currently leads a team of more than 30 colleagues including buyers, technical teams and marketing specialists and acts as a mentor to six colleagues within the business.

Under her leadership our Emerging Markets Team has created a portfolio worth £500 million for Asda and has been named the Retailer of the Year at the World Food Awards for the past two years.

In the last two years CJ has helped to grow our local and ethnic lines to over 6000 products from 500 local suppliers. With her belief that understanding the customer is key, she’s led the introduction of a number of high street names such as Cornish Bakers Rowes and Indian Food specialists Zouk into our stores and worked to introduce region specific ranges such as Chosen by you Scotland and Northern Ireland – offering local favourites to our customers.

We’re delighted that CJ’s hard work and dedication has been recognised – congratulations from everyone at Asda!