Forty Under 40: Deanna Newberry

A native of Topeka, Kan., Deanna Newberry, 37, calculated one of the best colleges she could attend was Tulane University in New Orleans. That’s where she started pursuing her degree in mathematics. But two years in, she married and moved to Northwest Arkansas.

That was in 1992, and by ‘93 she was working at Wal-Mart headquarters as a replenishment manager. Newberry learned the company’s side of the supplier-to-retailer ropes and in 1996 joined Clorox, where she held a myriad of jobs within the company’s automotive category, including analyst, category, replenishment and senior sales manager slots.

She joined Honeywell in 2001 and was quickly promoted into the national account manager role, a position she held until 2006. During that time Newberry continued school, and graduated from John Brown University with a degree in organizational management in 2003.

In 2006, she was named the company’s supply chain and logistics manager and in July as Honeywell’s global director of category management. She now is responsible for growing the company’s category teams who deal with AutoZone, O’Reilly’s and other retailers.

“Working on the supplier side has allowed me to work on the analytics. I really enjoy numbers,” she said. “Not just looking at the data, but also creating stories from the data.”