Yong Zhang leads measurement in one of the fastest-growing and most closely watched spaces in media—retail media.

As director of data science for Kroger Precision Marketing, Zhang, 36, has been working to meet the growing marketer interest in targeting and measuring results for one of the biggest retail media networks. And she’s been doing that quite well, apparently, given that KPM was ranked as the top retail network for measurement capabilities in a 2023 survey of brand managers conducted by the Path to Purchase Institute.

Over the past year, Zhang has led efforts to build modular measurement, allowing teams to use flexible building blocks to customize plans and reporting. She also pioneered in-flight measurement in KPM programmatic solutions to let brand marketers track such metrics as household penetration, new or existing customers reached and results by individual product codes as campaigns run.

“My team is building the science to enable brands to measure with new [key performance indicators],” said Zhang, who came to KPM three years ago after working on other Kroger teams focused on machine learning to help build customer segments, among other things.

The modular approach she helped develop lets people “cherry-pick what functions they need to complete their analysis,” Zhang said, comparing it to building a sandwich from common components.

“This product has really made measurement easy internally,” she said.

If you could have dinner with one person, alive or dead, who would it be and why?

I would love to have dinner with Marie Curie and tell her how inspirational she has been in my life. She was one of the most influential scientists and won the Nobel Prize. But most importantly, she opened the door for women to enter the fields of science. When I was a young kid, she was my role model and motivated me for a long time.

What are the top two social media sites you use on a regular basis?

I use YouTube and LinkedIn a lot. LinkedIn is to help me build my professional network connections, connect to peers from work and from the industry to learn how they do things. YouTube is more for my personal life. I am a doer type of person. I do a lot of things by myself. Like last month I had a very tiny accident, which broke the side mirror of my car, and I don’t want to claim insurance for that. So I just went to YouTube to figure out how to fix it myself.

What’s currently on your bedside reading list?

I just started to read “How to Talk.” It’s a series of five books. As a tech leader, most of the time I’m working with my computer and tell the programs exactly what I need. The same process really doesn’t work well with people. … I’m trying to get some better strategies … so I can better talk to my children.

What was the last show you binge-watched?

There’s a Korean show called “The Glory” on Netflix. It’s about a young woman bullied to the point of deciding to drop out of school, and she plans the best way to get revenge. It highlights the social problems around bullying, mental illness and capitalism. … The takeaway is we want to be treated equally [and] respected equally, regardless of background.

At what age do you hope to retire?

I think maybe 60 or even earlier. I just hope I can be fully prepared at that point, and then I can enjoy the rest of my life.