Claire Santamaria, Vice President Yorkdale Shopping Centre and Bill Bass, CMO Full Beauty Brands each share insights and lessons learned from decades of experience in retail and eCommerce

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail, I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada and with the support of omNovos, Canada’s digital customer engagement company. omNovos makes Personalization EASY by helping you connect with your customers, connect with your data, and connect with your systems. Learn HOW at www.realcustomerengagement.com.

On this episode I catch up with Claire Santamaria, Vice President, Yorkdale Shopping Centre and talk about how Canada's most productive shopping mall is dealing with the COVID-19 crisis and looking ahead to the busy holiday season leveraging decades of experience and a strong team to help bring the year home.

Next live from New York I interview a long time friend, colleague and retail industry veteran Bill Bass, CMO at Full Beauty Brands.   Bill shares lessons learned leading  eCommerce at brands such as Sears.com and Lands End, the strategic moat of plus size fashion and invaluable insights into the state and future of eCommerce.

But first, lets check in with Claire from Yorkdale

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Thanks to Claire and Bill for being my guests, and omNovos for their support on this episode.  If you liked this podcast please subscribe on Apple, Spotify or your favourite podcast platform,  rate and review, and be sure and recommend to a friend or colleague in the retail industry.

I’m Michael LeBlanc, Founder and President of M.E. LeBlanc and Company Inc. and you can learn more about me on www.meleblanc.co or of course on LinkedIn

Until next time, have a safe week!

Michael LeBlanc is the president and founder of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc, a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and now, media entrepreneur.  He has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. 

Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels, most recently on the main stage in Toronto at Retail Council of Canada’s Retail Marketing conference with leaders from Walmart & Google.  He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, CanWest Media, Pandora Jewellery, The Shopping Channel and Retail Council of Canada to his advisory, speaking and media practice.

Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including the award-winning No.1 independent retail industry podcast in America, Remarkable Retail with his partner, Dallas-based best-selling author Steve Dennis; Canada's top retail industry podcast The Voice of Retail and Canada's top food industry and one of the top Canadian-produced management independent podcasts in the country, The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois from Dalhousie University in Halifax.

Rethink Retail has recognized Michael as one of the top global retail experts for the fifth year in a row, the National Retail Federation has designated Michael as on their Top Retail Voices for 2025, Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail, RTIH has named him a top 100 global though leader in retail technology and Coresight Research has named Michael a Retail AI Influencer.  If you are a BBQ fan, you can tune into Michael’s cooking show, Last Request BBQ, on YouTube, Instagram, X and yes, TikTok.

Michael is available for keynote presentations helping retailers, brands and retail industry insiders explaining the current state and future of the retail industry in North America and around the world.