ABOUT OUR CEO AND FOUNDER:
Lyne Castonguay is an international business executive with experience in manufacturing, retail and e-commerce across North America, Europe, and Asia. She has a proven track record in driving growth, fostering innovation, leading business transformations, integrating acquisitions, and developing talented, customer-centric teams. A French Canadian native of New Brunswick and a graduate of the Universite de Moncton, Mrs. Castonguay also furthered her education at Harvard Business School.
Most recently, Lyne was President and COO of a multibillion US division for a large manufacturing food and dairy processing company. She was also on the Board of Directors of Montreal AI startup company, HeyDay Technologies who was recently sold to Hootsuite for $60 million. Prior to her current role, she served as Executive Vice President (COO) for Sobeys Inc, where she was also a member of the company’s Executive Leadership Committee, and recognized as one of the most powerful women in the grocery industry by Star Woman in 2018.
When Lyne joined Sobeys in 2016 as Chief Merchandising & Marketing Manager, she became a crucial contributor to the ongoing transformation of the company, and laid the foundation for the national merchandising and marketing structures. She was the architect of Sobeys' success in stabilizing margins and sales and played a key role in creating the Ocado e-commerce partnership. Under Castonguay's leadership, the Sobeys team received many awards and accolades for private label product innovation and marketing campaigns. She focused on brand transformation and partnerships to build loyalty and trust of consumers which resulted in Sobeys being named one of the most admired companies in Canada and #1 in the groceries–convenience sector for 3 consecutive years, according to the Leger Corporate Reputation Study. Since food traditions and tailgating are such a big part of sports, Lyne and her team also signed major sports sponsorship deals across the MLB, NBA, NHL and MLS leagues, enabling customers to have sports experiences that included Sobeys and its partners.
Before joining Sobeys in 2016, Lyne spent 14 years in progressively senior roles at The Home Depot both in Canada and in the United States, including Business Unit Leader and Senior Vice President of Home Services which was also inclusive of the acquired business portfolio. At that time, the acquired business portfolio included a company in the cabinet manufacturing space, a company in the B2B space, multiple sales management branches nationally and a commissioned sales force of over 1,500 sales professionals in addition to over 4,000 third-party installers.
During her time at The Home Depot, Lyne also worked in various merchandising, marketing and operations roles. She developed numerous business partnerships and brands through collaboration and customer-centric product innovation. Prior to her experience at The Home Depot, she was the Country General Manager for GE's Lighting division in Canada.
Lyne and her husband founded a sports and athletic development business, Beacon Sports, in Atlanta focusing on baseball and softball. They are passionate about leadership, development, team building and coaching. They are also part owners of the Future Star Series and Program 15, a baseball scouting and development program based in Houston, Texas.