Founder & Chief Innovation Officer
Think Ahead Advisors
Stacey Helbig has spent 20+ years on both sides of the CPG and retail equation. She has sat in the buyer's chair at major big box retailers and built a consumer brand from startup to national distribution. That rare combination gives her clients an unfair advantage.
She rose to VP at Staples across both Merchandising and Strategy, where she led category management, vendor selection, product assortment, and in-store innovation programs. Stacey was also the pioneer who brought TSA PreCheck to market in a retail footprint for the first time, proving her ability to identify unconventional opportunities and execute them at scale. As former COO at Fire Department Coffee, she scaled wholesale operations, built strategic retail partnerships, and navigated major distributors including KeHE, UNFI, RJW, and UNIS. She knows exactly what big box retailers look for — and how to win their business.
Her earlier career as VP and GM at Boston Apparel Group and Senior Merchant at Lane Bryant rounds out a cross-industry perspective spanning CPG, retail, apparel, and e-commerce. Stacey holds a BA in Marketing Management from Bryant University.