The Voice of Retail Feature Interviews with Arlene Dickinson, CEO of District Ventures Capital on taking innovative new products to retail, and Michele Sexsmith, SVP of Environics Analytics and helping CMOs understand the full power of digital & the marketing mix
Welcome to the Voice of Retail for the week of June 18th, 2019 I’m your host Michael LeBlanc and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
In this episode an exclusive interview with Arlene Dickinson, legendary entrepreneur, founding Dragon on CBC’s Dragon’s Den, veteran investor and CEO of District Ventures Capital ( https://www.districtventurescapital.com/) based in Calgary. After working together several years during my days at The Shopping Channel, Arlene and I catch up and chat about her latest series of investments at District Ventures focussing on start-ups in the food category taking them onto retailer’s shelves with an innovative listing deal with with CircleK convenience stores.
Next I sit down with Michele Sexsmith, SVP and Practice Leader, Retail, Real Estate and Entertainment Sectors from Environics Analytics talking about the marketing mix for retailers and how to leverage digital to amplify, personalize and measure customers and customer segments in and around your retail stores and more.
Last but not least I’ll cover off Retail This Week including the sweet smell of success for Saje, RYU founder’s love of tribes, Giant Tiger breaks new ground, Dollarama back on growth path, Ikea turns a Paris subway into a glorious showroom, Amazon’s private label products best sellers in 22 categories, Walmart deals with Ellen, hot rental trends and the customer that use them, shades of grey - Vancouver cannabis edition, Choom cannabis opens with great fan-fare in Niagara Falls, Canna Cabana in Toronto, Shoppers offers same-day delivery in Ontario, and edibles laws finalized and ready for on-shelf around December.
But first, let’s listen in to my interview with Arlene Dickinson
Thanks to Arlene and Michele for being my special guests for this episode. Now let’s hit the highlights from Retail This Week eNewsletter, biggest retail weekly in Canada and you can subscribe on www.retailcouncil.org for free.
That’s a wrap on this edition of The Voice of Retail, if you liked this podcast you can subscribe on iTunes or your
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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.