Samir Kulkarni, CEO of Showcase and veteran retail CIO Gary Davenport talk innovation, supply chain and mastering the trends for enterprise success

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 make Personalization EASY by helping you engage the right customer, with the right content, at the right time. Find out how you can get started quickly and affordably so you can focus on doing what matters most--driving revenue and margin growth at www.realcustomerengagement.com

This episode is also supported by riwi, real-time interactive world-wide intelligence, visit www.riwi.com to learn more…

In this episode I welcome Samir Kulkarni, CEO of Showcase - Home of Canada's hottest trends. Samir shares his innovative approach to staying ahead of the top retail product trends with social media listening and agile supply management and merchandising that also made them an important destination for PPE in the early days of the COVID-19 crisis.

Next, I catch up with Gary Davenport, CIO Mentor and Board Advisor and talks about the early days of working together and launching Hudson's Bay groundbreaking eCommerce, plus his wise advice to modern retail technology leaders.

But first, let’s hear from Samir from Showcase

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Thanks to Samir and Gary for being my guests,  plus omNovos and riwi 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

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.