Blythe J. McGarvie has served in four C-suite roles: CEO of LIF Group, CFO of Société BIC based in Paris France, CFO of Fortune 500 supermarket company Hannaford Bros., and CAO of Sara Lee Corporation. Ms. McGarvie is a highly successful leader with a proven track record of increasing shareholder value at these companies as well as on those she serves as a member of the Board of Directors. Her financial expertise is complimented with leading technology effectiveness in corporate roles and an engaging personality. Her financial expertise was recognized at Harvard Business School where she taught Financial Reporting and Controls on a full- time basis.

The common threads throughout Blythe’s board experience are her passion for international companies, domestic retail businesses, and financial expertise. Blythe has served on 10 companies’ Board of Directors. Currently, she serves at Apple Hospitality REIT (since 2018) as well as privately-held Wawa, Inc. (since 1998), as Lead Director at both companies. She served or chaired various committees at Accenture, LKQ Corp, Pepsi Bottling Group, Viacom, Travelers, Sonoco, Lafarge N.A. From 2023 to 2026, she also served on the board of London-based Regal Global Entertainment and worked closely with KPMG and newly recruited management to prepare for the IPO listing, restating financials, creating controls and identifying risk factors for the Prospectus.  While serving on the board of Travelers, Blythe served on the Executive Committee as well as chairing the $80 billion Investment Committee, avoiding write-offs during the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009.

Always attentive to cultural and marketplace changes, Blythe focused on A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) since 2023 to help her boards accelerate intelligent insights, improve decision making and increase speed to execution. One retailer on whose board I serve minimized credit card fraud risk by implementing AI warning signals. With new AI technology we can now personalize certain promotions and use omnichannel marketing solutions. Management can better measure the true effectiveness of promotions to motivate customer behavior such as increasing store visits and making additional purchases.

She knows how to leverage systems, as she was responsible for Information Technology in her CFO and CAO roles. In one company, her team improved IT network architecture, realizing over 60% improvement in processing time and dramatically increasing reliability of major retail and merchandising systems. As CAO of the Pacific Rim at Sara Lee Corporation, the group grew revenue from $124 million to $596 million in three years with 68% of the growth due to de novo start-ups or acquisitions in Japan, Philippines and Argentina. With her extensive skills in growth companies, she brings to the boardroom knowledge both to acquire and integrate attractive opportunities and to avert those with red flags.

Blythe’s work in boardrooms has been well-recognized by her peers. In January 2026, the newly launched Wall Street Journal Board of Directors Council, a global community of corporate board leaders tackling the most pressing issues companies face today.

The NACD invited her to be a Commissioner for the Blue-Ribbon Commission initiative focused on adaptive governance: to better assess and respond to complex, difficult-to-identify risks that would have a profound economic, operational, and/or reputational effect, producing a popular report just prior to the pandemic. In 2018, Women Inc. named her as a 2018 Most Influential Director. In 2012, 2010, and 2008, NACD/Directorship selected Blythe as one of the Top 100 “Most Renowned and Influentials” in corporate governance. In July 2021, Blythe completed the University of Cambridge 7-week course on ESG and Sustainability. In 2019, she earned a CERT Certificate in Cybersecurity Oversight and presented Corporate Governance topics to various audiences.

She is the author of bestselling book, Shaking the Globe, Courageous Decision-Making in a Changing World (published by John Wiley & Sons in 2009) and Fit In Stand Out, subtitled Mastering the FISO Factor: The Key to Leadership Effectiveness in Business and Life (published by McGraw-Hill in 2005).

Blythe is a certified public accountant (CPA), passing all parts of the exam on the first attempt. She earned an MBA from Northwestern University’s J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management, which selected her for the Schaffner Award recognizing both preeminence in his or her field and who providing outstanding service to the school.