See the full profile feature of the 2025 MDM Women in Distribution here.

After gathering over 30 nomination entries, MDM is proud to announce our 2025 Women in Distribution honorees.

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 February through the first half of March, asking the industry to identify women in distribution that should be recognized along with some commentary about why.

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Our 2021 rendition was the feature’s inaugural version, and it was always meant to be an annual feature. But amid editor turnover and then our acquisition by the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors at the start of 2024, the feature was put on pause as there were just too many moving parts to devote the proper resources for it. But now that the dust has settled, we’re thrilled to bring MDM’s Women in Distribution back.

Below, you will find the list of this year’s 20 honorees, who represent a wide variety of distributor demographics. Ahead, stay tuned for our Premium feature that will share profiles of each of these honorees.

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 — CIO at Reinders

Teesee Murray — Group President at Turtle

Katie Poehling Seymour — CEO & President of First Supply

Birte Von Schwarzenfeld — SVP of Commercial Solutions at Beacon Roofing Supply

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

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Recognition at SHIFT

Besides us publishing our 2025 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 13-15 in Denver. There, we will host a Women in Distribution forum on the night of May 14, emceed by one of our 2021 honorees, Allie Copeland of ADI Global Distribution. Pre-registration is required and is done when registering for SHIFT. Please direct any questions on the forum to [email protected].

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2021 Honorees

Here’s our 2021 Women in Distribution honorees. Several of them received nominations for this year as well, but given that the 2025 version is the first once since then, we determined that the 2021 honorees wouldn’t be eligible for 2025. View the 2021 Premium feature here.

• • Rosana Chaidez, NB Handy Company
  • Rose Chen, WESCO
  • Allie Copeland, ADI Global*
  • Julie Copeland, Arbill Inc.
  • Sarah Finlayson, Riverhawk Industrial Supply
  • Nancy Goedecke, Mayer Electric
  • Carrie Kessel, Mahar Tool Supply Co.
  • Joyce Lansdale, Vallen
  • Kathy Mazzarella, Graybar
  • Jayne Millard, Turtle
  • Jennifer Murphy, NetPlus Alliance 
  • Katie Parris, The Part Works
  • Chintan Patel, SiteOne Landscape Supply 
  • Robyn Pollina, Palmer Donavin 
  • Lauren Roberts, cfm 
  • Petra Schindler-Carter, Amazon Business 
  • Deb Swambar, Crescent Electric Supply Company 
  • Anne Vranicic, Valin Corporation*
  • Jessica Yurgaitis, Industrial Supply Company 

*Also nominated for 2025

MDM plans to publish these Women in Distribution features in 2026. We’ll likely start collecting nominations in February. Questions/comments? Reach out to [email protected].