The Voice of Retail

Welcome to the Voice of Retail for the week of October 7, 2019 I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada and brought to you by Atomic Reach. Atomic Reach offers Atomic AI, the world's leading Smart Content Platform. By optimizing product descriptions and marketing content to match shopper's reading and emotional preferences, we deliver sales conversion improvement and personalization at scale.In this week’s episode just in time for Thanksgiving - an exclusive interview with 3rd generation butcher, bespoke grocer and entrepreneur Stephen Alexander president of Cumbrae's grocery in Toronto. We talk about his journey from Australia to Canada, the essence of the brand and exciting expansion plans for the near future!Also joining me from live from Montreal is Philippe Cantin Senior Director, Sustainability Innovation and Circular Economy with Retail Council of Canada. Phillippe helps us unpack what retailers need to be on top of from the sustainability file across Canada. Lastly I’ll take a look at the retail news of the week, but first, let’s listen to my interview with Stephen Alexandre.******Thanks to Stephen and Phillipe for being my guests this week, 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 Apple iTunes or your favourite podcast platform, please 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 LinkedInUntil next time, have a great week! The Voice of Retail podcast is presented by Hale, a performance marketing partner trusted by brands like ASICS, Saje, and Orangetheory to scale with focus and impact. 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. 

Welcome to the Voice of Retail for the week of September 30, 2019 I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.In this week’s episode an exclusive interview with Vince Guzzo, Montreal-based CBC Dragon, entrepreneur and philanthropist.  In a fun and wide ranging interview we talk about the retail and consumer environment in Quebec, his experiences during the taping of his second season  of Dragons Den,  how the deals he’s seeing this year are different, how he determines whether he is "In" or "Out"  (and with who!) and the end of Netflix.https://www.cbc.ca/dragonsden/canadiantire/article.htmlNext I swing over to the west coast and catch up with Greg Wilson, Retail Council of Canada’s BC Director of Government Relations.  We  discuss the key issues for retailers based in, or operating in, British Columbia.Lastly I’ll take a look at the retail news of the week, but first, let’s listen to my interview with Vince Guzzo.******Thanks to Vince &  Greg  for being my guests this week, 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 Apple iTunes or your favourite podcast platform, please 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 great week! The Voice of Retail podcast is presented by Hale, a performance marketing partner trusted by brands like ASICS, Saje, and Orangetheory to scale with focus and impact. 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. 

Welcome to the Voice of Retail for the week of September 23rd, 2019 I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.  This episode is dedicated to John C. Williams a retail legend, advocate, friend and mentor to many who left us September 21, 2019.In this week’s episode an exclusive interview with keynote speaker and author Jeremy Miller on his new book “Brand New Name” - “A proven step-by-step process to create an unforgettable brand name “  We talk about the inspiration for the book, the challenges it helps solve and how individuals can take agency and ownership in their own branding process.Next I  chat with Nisha Oza, head of brand partnerships for Chinese Laundry.  We talk live at the Global eCommerce Leaders Forum in New York in the Purolator Podcasting Studio and explore Nisha’s personal and professional journey up to and including becoming one of the industry’s leading experts on influencers and managing influencer marketing for this fashion forward brand and online retailer.Lastly I’ll take a look at the retail news of the week, but first, let’s listen to my interview with Jeremy Millier.******Thanks to Jeremy and Nisha for being my guests this week, 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 Apple iTunes or your favourite podcast platform, please 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 LinkedInUntil next time, have a great week! The Voice of Retail podcast is presented by Hale, a performance marketing partner trusted by brands like ASICS, Saje, and Orangetheory to scale with focus and impact. 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. 

Welcome to the Voice of Retail for the week of September 16, 2019 I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.In this week’s episode I’m on the road, recording interviews from the Bahamas where I was a keynote speaker at Bluestar’s Vartech conference, and now recording live at the Global eCommerce Leaders Forum in New York in the Purolator podcasting studio.For this episode I reach out all the way out to Vancouver and chat with retailer Indochino CEO Drew Green. We catch up and talk about their impressive 40% YOY growth numbers that have made them one of Canadian Businesses ranked fastest growing retailers in their recent rankings, what it takes to maintain that level of growth and keep the customer coming backNext I chat with veteran retail brand marketer Patrick Dickinson and talk retail marketing tradecraft, the complexities managing multiple brands and concepts in modern retail, and the nature of crowds, or lack of them, creating challenges for traditional store traffic models. Lastly I’ll take a look at the retail news of the week, but first, let’s listen to my interview with Drew Green. A quick note, gremlins and not a super-great mobile connection stepped a bit on my recording with Drew, so you’ll hear the occasional beep that was I unable to edit from the interview.****** Thanks to Drew & Patrick for being my guests this week, 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 Apple iTunes or your favourite podcast platform, please 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 great week! The Voice of Retail podcast is presented by Hale, a performance marketing partner trusted by brands like ASICS, Saje, and Orangetheory to scale with focus and impact. 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. 

Welcome to the Voice of Retail for the week of September 9, 2019 I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.In this weeks episode I get up close and personal with the one and only Sonny Brar, a veteran retailer who now is Vice President of Member Relations and education at Retail Council of Canada. We focus on conversation on retail loss prevention - top trends, what Sonny is hearing around the table at the loss prevention advisory council, and what is on deck for Retail Secure, Canada’s premier retail LP conference coming up in a couple of weeks.RCC Member Only Shrink Survey: https://www.retailcouncil.org/community/loss-prevention/retail-loss-prevention-and-shrink-survey/Next I chat with Sean Copeland, Vice President of Data at Lift & Co. in Toronto. We delve into their new cannabis study “As 2.0 opportunities emerge, can you still compete with 1.0 strategies: Canadian cannabis consumer insights for legalization 2.0” and tease out lessons learned for recreational cannabis retailers.Lastly I’ll take a look at the retail news of the week, but first, let’s listen to my interview with Sonny Brar******Thanks to Sonny and Sean for being my guests this week, 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 Apple iTunes or your favourite podcast platform, please 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 great week! The Voice of Retail podcast is presented by Hale, a performance marketing partner trusted by brands like ASICS, Saje, and Orangetheory to scale with focus and impact. 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. 

Welcome to the Voice of Retail special MJBizCon International Cannabis conference edition, I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. Held in Toronto in September 2019, the MJBizCon International brought together 2,500 Global Cannabis Executives To Learn, Grow & Connect. I took the opportunity to set up shop in their podcasting studio and interview three of the most interesting and influential participants starting off with Lara Wood, General Manager of Cannabis NB (my dad’s home province, New Brunswick). This is Lara’s third time on The Voice of Retail, so we catch up on developments over the summer, their innovative and ground breaking pop-up store, and what lies ahead for Cannabis 2.0 Next we meet Darren Bondar, President and CEO of Inner Spirit Holdings and Spirit Leaf Cannabis, one of Canada’s biggest cannabis retailers with 100 sites under development and dozens currently operating. We talk about the success of their franchise model, engagement in the community, and the important role of shop-in-shops and in-store merchandising partnerships. Lastly we explore the consumer mindset in the U.S., Canada and globally around CBD with Kay Tamillow Director of Research, Brightfield Group based in Chicago. We deep dive into the rapidly evolving CBD market with expert analysis and package goods insight. But first let’s listen to my interview with Lara Wood: Thanks to Lara, Darren and Kay for being my guests , and my hosts at MJBizCon International for this special edition of The Voice of Retail …if you liked this podcast you can subscribe on Apple iTunes or your favourite podcast platform, please 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 great week! The Voice of Retail podcast is presented by Hale, a performance marketing partner trusted by brands like ASICS, Saje, and Orangetheory to scale with focus and impact. 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. 

Welcome to the Voice of Retail for the week of September 2, 2019 I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. He's been called the “rock star of digital media”, by Strategy Magazine and “the real deal” by Seth Godin…veteran podcaster, best selling author of two groundbreaking books and global keynote speaker Mitch Joel is my very special guest. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing and working with Mitch for almost two decades, but we catch up after almost five years surrounded by images of the 50th anniversary of the John Lennon Bed-IN for peace at the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth in Montreal as Mitch helps us Decode the Future! Next I visit a rising star of eCommerce and marketing in Canada - Johnny Russo is my guest in his offices at the Kerseh group (www.thekershegroup.com). We catch up with Johnny on his move back to Montreal from Calgary, his current role, his agile philosophy and approach to attract talent & build a team in the hyper -competitive retail & eCommerce space. Check out his blog at http://www.johnnyrusso.com/ Lastly I’ll take a look at the retail news of the week, but first, let’s listen to my interview with Mitch Joel Thanks to Mitch and Johnny for being my guests this week, 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 Apple iTunes or your favourite podcast platform, please 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 great week! The Voice of Retail podcast is presented by Hale, a performance marketing partner trusted by brands like ASICS, Saje, and Orangetheory to scale with focus and impact. 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. 

Welcome to the Voice of Retail for the week of August 26, 2019 I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. He's leading the Canadian package delivery and eCommerce shipping industry with a ONE BILLION DOLLAR investment...hear all about capacity being created in Canada’s shipping infrastructure, the enhanced capabilities that deliver competitive advantage to their customers all from Purolator Inc. President & CEO John Ferguson in my exclusive interview! Next I connect with Arnaud Bussieres, the CEO of retailer Clearly. Started in Vancouver in 2000 as a pure play digital native contact lens eCommerce brand, then purchased in 2014 by French eyewear powerhouse Ellisor, Arnaud takes us through the brand and retail strategy, the fortunate position of having Amazon set the bar high, the role of bricks and mortar stores, and the importance that local and national direct to home delivery plays in the winning formula that is this innovative direct to customer retailer. Lastly I’ll take a look at the retail news of the week, but first, let’s listen to my interview with John Ferguson from Purolator Canada Thanks to John and Arnaud for being my guests this week, 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 Apple iTunes or your favourite podcast platform, please 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 great week! The Voice of Retail podcast is presented by Hale, a performance marketing partner trusted by brands like ASICS, Saje, and Orangetheory to scale with focus and impact. 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. 

Welcome to the Voice of Retail for the week of August 12, 2019 I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. My guest was Google employee No. 2 in Canada, one of the first 500 in the entire company - Eric Morris, Head of Retail for Google joins me for an exclusive live and interactive interview where we search for answers to the state of retail, how consumers are interacting online, and what’s next for retailers from the Google Tickle-Trunk. Next we head to the East Coast for a feature interview with RCC’s Atlantic director Jim Cormier coming to us from Halifax. We discuss the top issues for retailers located in or operating in the region, as Jim works with the four provincial governments to work together and align rules and regulations for retailers across the region including environmental stewardship programs, plastic bags as low hanging fruit and overall regulatory harmonization. You can contact Jim on jcormier@retailcouncil.org  902-422-4144 or 1-855-422-4144 Lastly I’ll take a look at the retail news of the week, but first, let’s listen to my interview with Eric Morris from Google Canada Thanks to Eric and Jim for being my guests this week, 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 Apple iTunes or your favourite podcast platform, please 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 great week! The Voice of Retail podcast is presented by Hale, a performance marketing partner trusted by brands like ASICS, Saje, and Orangetheory to scale with focus and impact. 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. 

Welcome to the Voice of Retail for the week of August 5, 2019 I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. The feature spotlight for this episode is CX, Customer Experience. We kick it off with an exclusive interview with Rick Parrish, Vice President and Principal Analyst from Forrester who joins me to discuss his latest Canadian CX Index report. This report, covering 161 brands across 14 industries including retail with Forrester talk to over 62,000 Canadian consumers. Next I’m joined by Customer Experience guru Tara O’Doherty who takes us along for an insiders view of CX as she talks about her experiences working in Canada and around the world with companies as they try to master the Zen of CX with a few wins, ties and fails along the way. Lastly I’ll take a look at the retail news of the week, but first, let’s listen to my interview with Rick from Forrester Thanks to Rick and Tara for being my guests this week, 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 Apple iTunes or your favourite podcast platform, and be sure and recommend to a friend or colleague in the retail industry. You can also ask your favourite home devices, Amazon Echo, Google home to play the most recent edition. 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 great week! The Voice of Retail podcast is presented by Hale, a performance marketing partner trusted by brands like ASICS, Saje, and Orangetheory to scale with focus and impact. 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.