The Retail Loyalty Flywheel: Data, Leadership and Long-Term Thinking with Emily Wells, Head of Transformation at Sainsbury's

Emma sits down with Emily to unpack what really makes loyalty work in retail. Drawing on her experience at Tesco, John Lewis and now Sainsbury’s, Emily argues that loyalty only succeeds when it sits at the heart of the business – not tucked away in marketing. The conversation explores the power of data, the importance of leadership belief, and how AI, retail media and changing customer behaviour could reshape loyalty in the years ahead. 

What is Utter Loyalty?

Utter Loyalty brings you live, on-location conversations from the heart of the loyalty and CRM industry. Loyalty leaders speak as themselves — no scripts, no rehearsals, no best-practice theatre. Just raw thinking, real opinions, and the grey areas shaping loyalty right now.

Emma Collins: 00:00

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Utter Loyalty. I'm here with the wonderful Emily Wells, who is currently working at Sainsbury's in transformation. Welcome, Emily. I have a throne for you I have this wonderful backdrop. Here we are along the Thames.

Emma Collins: 00:19

So, Emily, I'm in awe of what you've managed to achieve in your career and where you've worked. You've worked across some big hitters in brand space, but also notably for the loyalty space as well. Talk me through your Career. Your potted career history

Emily Wells: 00:40

and what

Emma Collins: 00:41

have you learnt along the way?

Emily Wells: 00:43

Thanks, Emma. I mean, it's so lovely to chat with

Emma Collins: 00:46

you and

Emily Wells: 00:46

I've been really looking forward to the conversation. So thanks for having me. Yeah, so in my current role, I am head of transformation at Sainsbury's, mainly focused on AI and emerging innovation, which is fascinating It and really is. Yeah. And then prior to that, so I've been doing this role for eight months.

Emily Wells: 01:04

Prior to that, I spent eight years really focused on loyalty and personalization roles across Tesco. So working on Clubcard for just over five years and then went over and did similar type role at John Lewis. So I ran the My John Lewis and My Waitress schemes and also led the transformation across the two.

Emma Collins: 01:25

So in the loyalty space, you have worked for, as I said, some big hitters that are synonymous with super the superpower of loyalty. What sets them apart? Yeah. Why are they making it? Why are they doing so well at it?

Emma Collins: 01:46

And why are some not?

Emily Wells: 01:48

Yeah. It's it's a really interesting one, isn't it?

Emma Collins: 01:51

Because, you know, I worked for one that didn't. Yeah. I got the bruises. I, you know, I would really love your take on what do you what what do we need? What does a retailer need to be really successful?

Emma Collins: 02:10

Because it doesn't happen overnight. It needs investment, and it needs staying power. Like, what that's my take anyway, but what what do you think?

Emily Wells: 02:20

Yeah. You're you're absolutely right. And, you know, sometimes I see loyalty, which is in a little box called loyalty that gives a few coupons and sits in marketing, and that always breaks my heart a

Emma Collins: 02:31

bit when I see that,

Emily Wells: 02:32

because that's how business understands it, and you see really talented people working on these schemes, but actually, if that's the box you're in, you haven't got that kind of senior buy in to do more with that, then that's gonna always be really limiting. And then you see those who are really leading, and, you know, for me, that is people like, you know, Sephora and Amazon and Tesco and these kind of brands, purposely not mentioning my own things. Sainsbury's, obviously I always mention first. But, know, when I'm looking at the market, you have these types of players, and they just see loyalty in a totally different way. You know?

Emily Wells: 03:06

So it's the engine that drives the business. So, you know, they really have that innate understanding.

Emma Collins: 03:13

I always talk about, you know, it has to be at the center of the business, doesn't it? Absolutely. It's the data.

Emily Wells: 03:19

Absolutely. And even sometimes you get leadership teams who pay lip service to that, it's like, do you really understand what that means? You know what I mean? So it's about building a scheme which is absolutely irresistible and, you know, gathers complete and robust data and has high engagement and has high engagement in digital platforms, for me, they're probably the main areas. And then obviously you can use that to service things back to customers and make sure you have all that side of things covered, which is fairly well understood.

Emily Wells: 03:47

I think the side where it tends to maybe fall down for many, which keeps them short of that market leading and being truly transformational, is what are you then doing with that data in your business to build things that Right? Are so good how your commercial team using it? How are you using it to make sure you've got the right stock in the right place? How are you using it that data to make sure your operation runs as well as it can? How are you using it to build things that delight your customers?

Emily Wells: 04:14

Right? And that and then you've obviously got the retail media side of things as well, and then you've this flywheel of value. And I think when you get that flywheel and that starts motoring, then that's for me when you become leaders and when you become truly transformational. However, that takes understanding. That's an enterprise wide effort.

Emma Collins: 04:33

And it's got to come from the top It as to. It's to be believed from the top.

Emily Wells: 04:37

It has, and, you know, again, it always, you know, oh, that kind of breaks your heart a bit, and this is probably gonna be quite triggering. But then when I hear a lot of conversations around, oh, but what's the short term return of that? And oh, but that budget isn't gonna return within a few months, and I'm like, oh, because immediately that's red flags that you're not quite understanding what this is. This is this is a long term It does not ramp an overnight, and it's

Emma Collins: 05:05

not the silver bullet. Absolutely.

Emily Wells: 05:07

So, you know, that for me is where you have people who just get it. And businesses that aren't there yet. And I also think there's no right and wrong. You have to decide where you're at, and that's for leadership to decide everything else. But, yeah, I think that's when you really get into that kind complex.

Emily Wells: 05:31

And I

Emma Collins: 05:31

think she

Emily Wells: 05:31

thinks that

Emma Collins: 05:32

plays into the state of retail in general at the moment. How do you see loyalty being part of the retail conversation? There's lots of retailers in, you know, going south, shall we say? Yeah. You know, the state of the high street isn't a great place at the moment.

Emma Collins: 05:53

So what's your thoughts on that?

Emily Wells: 05:57

See, for me, and I mentioned it earlier, but I think it really is that real customer centricity and loyalty and data is going to be the heart of how retail works in the notorious future. Already I see it as something that splits people apart between those that are suddenly plowing ahead and those who are struggling a bit. Struggling. But I, you know, I I my personal opinion would be within five, ten years, it's gonna be a more of a deciding factor. It's gonna be

Emma Collins: 06:21

There's gonna be a gulf.

Emily Wells: 06:23

Isn't there? For many reasons. I I don't need to talk about the importance of data in driving everything because that's really well understood. There's more interesting, broader things happening in retail and trends coming through around upcoming generations and that blurring of the digital and physical spaces,

Emma Collins: 06:41

which I'm finding fascinating. Fascinating.

Emily Wells: 06:43

Which we're starting to see drip through into stores already. I mentioned Sephora already, they're doing brilliantly, McDonald's are doing some really interesting stuff tying that in. But if we look at our own children, and I've got a nearly 13 year old Same. Snap. The way they interact with the world, right?

Emily Wells: 07:02

So they don't see that binary, physical, digital in the same way

Emma Collins: 07:09

we did.

Emily Wells: 07:10

They'll be in store and they'll be looking at something on TikTok and looking in the store and it blends for So if we're going to be building retail experiences for these upcoming generations, and that's how retail is gonna come to life because they're gonna expect that, well, that takes kind of identifying customers and data and the ability to do all of this. And I think that's gonna be incredibly interesting, Yeah. How that emerges.

Emma Collins: 07:36

Oh, I can't wait. It's fascinating. It's gonna be exciting, And isn't your role is about the implementation or experimentation with AI. Where, well, I got that wrong. I've got that wrong.

Emma Collins: 07:51

No. No. Sainsbury's, not necessarily Nexa, but for Sainsbury's itself. What like, tell me what you're doing in that space. Where what like, what's the future there?

Emily Wells: 08:04

Yeah, so I mean, as you said, me and my team support thinking about AI transformation. It's a really big enterprise I've put in Sainsbury's, so I certainly wouldn't say we're, you know, we're leading that, but we're very much involved with that work. Obviously, won't talk specifically about what we're doing because India is all highly confidential. It is. You know, I think retail, it's just everywhere, isn't it?

Emily Wells: 08:34

And then, you know, there's there's key

Emma Collins: 08:35

things Yeah.

Emily Wells: 08:35

There's key things that are are thinking about, you know, and then we we would also be thinking about. And one is how do you use AI to find those efficiencies? Mhmm. I think that's a whole space. Is that it?

Emily Wells: 08:46

So, you know, the efficiencies of our teams, the efficiencies of our supply chains, efficiencies of our commercial teams, know, that whole space is really interesting. You've got another whole area around customer experience, both in store and digital and loyalty and how we're using AI to really step forward those areas. And, you know, there's this whole heap of stuff going on

Emma Collins: 09:06

It's in the yeah.

Emily Wells: 09:08

And then you go down and ramp up, haven't you, which, you know, is really the speed at which that is ramping up, think, is interesting. Quite scary. Really interesting. And you think about loyalty, you know, it's got massive repercussions for retail broadly, obviously, but if we think about loyalty, you've got probably more immediate things on the horizon, which is around, well, what's it going to do to retail media? This kind of side of the flywheel, which is probably the more immediate impact, so if you think about how that might ramp up.

Emily Wells: 09:38

But then you've the longer term impacts, which is we could be in a world when this is more scaled in the market, where you have these emerging challenges around sign up rates or engagement, or are you starting to get holes in your data because customers are suddenly completing shopping through some of these kind of AI platforms and not coming to the platforms. You know, how do you want to deal with that? And there's probably strategic decisions to be thinking about if you own a loyalty scheme around do you want to Is do your loyalty it something you want to reserve for transactions that go through your own platforms as a differentiator? Is it something you want to open up for customers where they complete transactions through agentic platforms? Why?

Emily Wells: 10:27

Why would you do one or the other? Why not? I think there's probably upcoming decisions which are going to be really interesting and some stakes in the ground to be placed for loyalty.

Emma Collins: 10:37

Wow, yeah, it's this, yeah, you could go down lots of different rough

Emily Wells: 10:42

Amazing. Paths

Emma Collins: 10:44

Well, you, Emily. What a fascinating, I could speak to you all then, but we've only got a certain amount of time. Thank you so much for joining me on Utter Loyalty and I look forward to following your career.

Emily Wells: 10:59

Thanks very much. Cheers.