Andrew S. Harig currently serves as Vice President, Tax, Trade, Sustainability & Policy Development at FMI-The Food Industry Association. In this position, he is responsible for lobbying Congress and the Administration on behalf of FMI members, with a primary focus on agriculture, taxes, trade, sustainability, food waste, and pensions. 

Prior to joining FMI, Andy was an associate trade advisor and speechwriter for the Senate Finance Committee under its Chairman, Max Baucus (D-MT).  From 1999-2001, he was the senior research associate for the Global Economic Policy Project at the New America Foundation, a Washington, DC-based think tank. Andy holds a B.A. from the College of William and Mary and an M.A. from DePaul University in Chicago, IL.cago, IL.

Ricky Volpe received his Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics from UC Davis in 2010. He then spent four years working as an economist at the USDA Economic Research Service in Washington DC. There he researched a variety of topics, including food price formation, competitiveness in the food industry, and the healthiness of grocery purchases in the U.S. Ricky was also responsible for forecasting retail food price inflation at the national level. 

Now at Cal Poly, Ricky teaches courses on food retail and supply chain management, transportation and logistics, and data analysis. He also maintains an active research agenda using a variety of large data sets to study issues related to market structure, firm performance, food prices, consumers’ food choices, and health outcomes. He also works closely with industry leaders in food retailing, wholesaling, and distribution to facilitate collaboration on public-private partnerships, student internships, and scholarships. 

Steve Markenson leads FMI’s research & insights practice. Markenson is a market research executive with 30 years of progressive experience in his field – from research assistant to president of a full-service national market research firm – and his diverse experience includes research design, information/data collection and analysis and strategic planning.

In his role at FMI, Markenson oversees the research & insights practice at FMI, specifically the study design, survey fielding and efforts with outside knowledge partners and FMI subject matter experts. He leads the discovery process on the latest industry trends and operational insights that champion FMI as a credible voice of the food retail industry. 

Monica Amburn, MS, RDN, is a registered dietitian, nutritionist and communications expert, currently serving as Vice President at Eat Well Global, a strategy and communications agency dedicated to empowering change-makers in food and health. Prior to this position, Monica spent twelve years working in grocery retail, first as a corporate dietitian for BI-LO Holdings and Southeastern Grocers. Following this role, she served as the Senior Director of Health and Wellness at Vestcom, where she supported the healthyAisles® point-of-sale nutrient & lifestyle attribute database program with over 30 retailers. Monica completed both her bachelor’s degree in Foods and Nutrition and dietetic internship at Radford University in Virginia, and completed her master’s degree in Nutrition and Dietetics from the University of North Florida. Monica now lives and works remotely in the Greenville-Spartanburg area of South Carolina. 

Bobby Gibbs is a Partner in the Retail & Consumer Goods practice at Oliver Wyman. Bobby focuses on capabilities building in pricing, promotions, and discount management enabled by advanced analytics, tool development and employee engagement. Bobby is a contributing author to Retail Revolution, Oliver Wyman’s study on major trends in the industry and co-authored numerous articles on industry trends including for the Harvard Business Review.  Bobby is on the leadership for Next Best Basket™, Oliver Wyman’s capability for retail personalization. Bobby has presented on industry trends for several FMI audiences (Board of Directors, Industry Relations Council, Growth Forum), the American Meat Conference, the Texas Insurance Academy, as well as client audiences.  He is a frequent commentator on industry trends in print, radio and television with recent interviews for NBC News, APM Marketplace, the Washington Post, Forbes, Winsight Grocery Business, Progressive Grocer, the Dallas Morning News, KMOX Saint Louis and others. 

Jonna has been an innovator in the fresh foods space for nearly two decades driving the evolution of consumer-centric decision making and big data analytics throughout the perimeter. She has worked extensively in each perimeter department: Meat, Bakery, Deli, Produce, Seafood, Dairy and Floral with both suppliers and retailers. Jonna joined IRI in 2016 and leads IRI’s Fresh COE focusing on solution enhancement, thought leadership and client consultation across both suppliers and retailers. Jonna graduated with highest honors from Bradley University with a degree in public relations and marketing and lives in Phoenix, Arizona.

Rick Stein joined FMI in 2014, and is responsible for developing a portfolio of services and activities to assist members in formulating and executing their fresh food strategies.  These categories include everything from  – dairy, frozen, meat, poultry, seafood, and produce to service departments – deli, bakery and fresh prepared meals and related solutions for take-out or in-store dining.

Prior to joining FMI, Rick spent 35 + years in a wide range of retail grocery merchandising and marketing responsibilities.  Most recently Stein was the Vice President of retail marketing & merchandising execution for Safeway Stores, Inc.  Previously he held both divisional and corporate responsibilities in his tenure at Safeway in retail/store operations, category management, sales, marketing/merchandising, and strategy development. He has experience in virtually every facet of the retail food business and helped lead Safeway to achieve operational excellence and increased market share and revenues.Stein graduated from the University of Maryland with a bachelor of Arts in Behavioral and Social Sciences.  He has earned continuing educations credits in marketing, merchandising and management, most recently with the Disney Institute. Rick serves on numerous nonprofit boards such as the MDA, Children’s Cancer Foundation and Easter Seals of DC/VA/MD.