Stay tuned for a series of profile articles featuring our 2026 honorees.

After poring over 40 nominations, we are proud to announce NAW’s 2026 Women in Distribution honorees, presented by MDM.

Coinciding with Women’s History Month throughout March, we sought to recognize a collection of women who have been pivotal to their company’s growth, innovation and leadership in a traditionally male-dominated industry.

To create this feature, MDM solicited nominations from late January through late February, asking the industry to identify women in distribution who should be recognized along with some commentary about why. Our only criteria was that these honorees must be from actual distribution companies or had extensive recent experience in the industry.

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We first published a Women in Distribution feature in 2021, were happy to revive it in 2025 and are now rolling out our 2026 feature.

Below, you will find the list of this year’s 20 honorees, who represent a wide variety of titles and distributor demographics. Stay tuned for a series of articles the week of March 23 that provide profiles of each honoree — using the information they provided us after we notified them of the accolade — along with who nominated them and commentary from those nominators. And near the end of the month, we’ll publish a Premium article that captures our honorees’ advice for other women who are either new to the industry or interested in joining it.

Congratulations to our 2026 class of Women in Distribution! Here they are in alphabetical order!

Richelle Bishoff — VP of Industrial Solutions, Border States

Jill Brady — VP of M&A Integration and Transformation at Rexel USA

Wendy Buchholz — Vice President of Sales, Upstate New York at Turtle

Heather Buck — Senior Director of Product Operations at Lawson Products (subsidiary of Distribution Solutions Group)

Anesa Chaibi — Chief Executive Officer at Global Industrial Company

Marlee D’Arco — Chief Executive Officer at Safety Services Inc.

Jenni Detert — Vice President of IT at Endries International

Natalie Eide — Vice President of Sales, Southeast Construction at Wesco International

Karen Friar — Chief Financial Officer at Benco Dental

Kim Garrett — Chief Information Officer at Vallen

Eva Heller — Vice President of Enterprise Integration & Real Estate at ADI Global

Pamela Hill — Director of Warehouse & Logistics at Mighty Distributing Systems of America

Tina Hueppe — President of Marshall Wolf Automation

Michelle Lewis — Chair of the Nominations/Governance and Compensation Committee for the Board of Directors and former Chief Strategy Officer at DNOW

Elisabeth Meister — Managing Director at Ludwig Meister

Jessica Oetinger — Regional Manager at Gypsum Management and Supply (subsidiary of SRS Distribution via The Home Depot)

Paige Robbins — Senior Vice President and President of Grainger Business Unit at Grainger

Kimberly Rutherford — Director of Vendor Relations at EMCO Corp. (subsidiary of Hajoca)

Allison Sabia — Chief Executive Officer at Galco Industrial Electronics

Terra Stegner — General Manager – Kansas City at Hanna Rubber (subsidiary of Singer Industrial)

Recognition at SHIFT

Besides us publishing our 2026 Women in Distribution honorees here on the MDM website, we’re also excited to recognize them at MDM’s marquee event of the year, SHIFT, to be held May 12-14 in Denver. There, we will host a Women in Distribution forum on the night of May 12, emceed by Senior Editor Vesna Brajkovic, and our 20 honorees will be recognized with a Women in Distribution breakfast the morning of May 14, followed by recognition on our main stage. Please direct any questions on the forum to [email protected].

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2025 Honorees

View our 2025 Premium Women in Distribution feature here.

Below, see our list of 20 honorees from our 2025 class of Women in Distribution:

• Jerusha Coffin — Systems Integration Manager at ABB Optical Group
• Laura Dabaldo — Owner & EVP of Filter Engineering Corporation
• Melissa Gordon — President & CEO at MGX Beverage Group
• Sheila Hernandez — VP of Marketing & Supplier Relations at Summit Electric
• Jenna Hoertz — Director of Strategic Initiatives and Project Management at APR Supply Co.
• Nichole Leonard — Sales Executive at Leonard Paper Company
• Heidi Levitt — Co-CEO at Levitt Safety
• Lauren Lanter — Co-CEO at B&D Industrial
• Robin McGuire — VP of Enterprise Applications at Vallen (previously CIO at Reinders)
• Teesee Murray — Group President at Turtle
• Katie Poehling Seymour — CEO & President of First Supply
• Birte Von Schwarzenfeld — CCO of Landscape Workshop (previously SVP of Commercial Solutions at former Beacon Roofing Supply, now QXO)
• Melissa Shute — Regional Sales Director at MSC Industrial Supply
• Melissa Thompson — CFO of Uline
• Sonia Timmons — CFO of Vallen
• Katy Vu — CFO at Bunzl North America
• Sonya Wells — CIO of SRS Distribution
• Sarah Weiss — Recent Past President & CEO of Elite Roofing Supply
• Debbie Weitzman — Pharma Segment CEO at Cardinal Health
• Aundrea Young — Owner & CEO of Competitive Choice

Questions/comments? Reach out to [email protected].