The Voice of Retail Retail HR trends, main-street retailers collaborating, Sobeys Farm Boy urban strategy + Hudson Yards opens in NYC
Two back-to-back great interviews in this week's edition! First up, Sonny Brar, MC and session moderator for Retail Council of Canada's upcoming Retail HR Forum on April 17 (http://rcchrconference.ca/ ) joins us to talk about Retail HR trends and give us a sneak peak into the great sessions planned for the event.
Next, we catch up with RCC alumni Andrew Siegwart who joins us for the first of a two-part interview chatting about his (not so new) gig at Blue Mountain Village Association, working with local main-street retailers, the essence of collaboration, and the importance of the personal connection in tourism retail.
Lastly we cover off Retail This Week, including Sobeys talking about the importance of their recent Farm Boy acquisition to their urban growth strategy, and the opening of Hudson Yards in New York, the massive 28 acre development featuring one million square feet of retail and the city's first Neiman Markus luxury department store.
I'm your host Michael LeBlanc, learn more about me at www.meleblanc.co
#retail #tourism #exploreON #ExploreCanada
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.