Former Tesco director and Nisa CEO Ken Towle joins Natalie on the podcast to discuss:

•    The retail and consumer outlook. •    Why shrinkflation is not always a bad thing. •    His experience running Nisa during the pandemic. •    From self-checkouts to generative AI – how technology is changing the way we shop for food. •    Grocery e-commerce and the importance of collaboration. •    Lessons from his time as Tesco China CEO.

Ken Towle is a Retail and Wholesale CEO, Executive, Advisor and Trustee. He spent many years at Tesco where he led the international expansion and acceleration of the group’s multichannel capability. Some of his previous roles at Tesco include CEO of China, Internet Retailing Director and Managing Director of Central Europe, Ireland and Turkey. 

More recent roles include President, Fashion/Teens at Alshaya Group; CEO of Nisa; and SVP, Retail and Logistics at Asda.

Ken is also a Member of the Board of Trustees at Prostate Cancer UK and previously served as a Senior Advisor at the Boston Consulting Group. 

Follow Ken on LinkedIn. 

Have you been to Catford Mews or Peckham Levels? Then you'll know what can be achieved by transforming disused car parks and empty retail units into vibrant, community-led, cultural hubs.

Preston Benson, founder of Really Local Group and fellow American in London, joins Natalie on the podcast to discuss:

• How Really Local Group is creating and restoring cultural infrastructure by regenerating disused high street locations.  
• Homogenous high streets - how to inject character and make our high streets relevant for 21st century shopping.
• Funflation - the Taylor Swift Effect and how cinemas will evolve in the future.
• Hyper-localism, community and the importance of financial inclusivity.
• Why Amazon has partnered with Odeon and what this means for smaller, community-led cinemas. 

Catford Mews was RLG’s first site and they’ve since expanded into a number of locations like Ealing, Peckham, Reading and Sidcup with more venues planned throughout 2024 and beyond.

Connect with Preston on LinkedIn.

It's International Women's Day this week and who better to speak to than the iconic and wonderfully inspirational fashion designer Dame Zandra Rhodes?

This conversation was recorded live on stage at Springfair in February 2024. Dame Zandra tells Natalie about:

- The highs and lows of breaking into the US fashion scene in the 1960s.

- How she has spent her life rallying against what was expected of her – both as a designer and a female.

- How her personal image has led to the success of her brand and more recent collaborations with IKEA, Happy Socks and Poppy Lissiman.

- What it was like to dress Freddie Mercury and which cultural icon she’d love to work with today.

- Her rainbow penthouse and pandemic pivots.

- Fashion retail trends – from the rise of digital to the need for circularity. 

- What’s next for Dame Zandra?

Dame Zandra’s bio:

Known for her fabulously bold prints, the iconic British designer, Dame Zandra Rhodes, launched her eponymous fashion brand 56 years ago.

Nicknamed ‘The Princess of Punk’, Rhodes burst onto the fashion scene in the late 1960s and continues to work from her studio in London. Rhodes began as a printed textile designer and is renowned for perfecting the art-of-print as an intrinsic influence on garment shape. With dramatic designs and her own distinctive look, Rhodes paved the way for fashion as theatre and entertainment. Her illustrious career has seen her dress international stars including Freddie Mercury, Diana Ross and Barbara Streisand, and British Royalty, most notably, Princess Diana and Princess Anne.

Originally marked as creating designs that were ‘too extreme’, in the early 70s Rhodes left England to try and break the American market. Within a few weeks of arriving in New York she met Diana Vreeland who debuted Rhodes’ ‘Knitted Circle’ collection on Natalie Wood in American Vogue. The rest is history…

A pioneer of the British and international fashion scene since the late 60s, Rhodes’ career has seen her produce over five decades of fashion collections and more recently focus on strategic collaborations with fashion and lifestyle brands such as IKEA of Sweden, Happy Socks and Poppy Lissiman. In 2003, she founded London’s Fashion and Textile Museum, which to this day showcases some of the best in fashion and textile design.

More recently, in 2020, she formed the Zandra Rhodes Foundation, a charity that ensures future generations of designers, artists, researchers, students and educators are able to study her life and designs, with an emphasis on her methods and techniques. Dating from the mid 1960s to the current day, the Foundation is working to catalogue her six thousand garments, printed textiles, drawings, accessories, fashion films, kodatraces, silk screens, press cuttings, personal memorabilia and collected artworks. A central collection will stay with the Foundation and the remaining material will be donated to permanent collections of major museums across the world, including the Fashion and Textile Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

For more, visit: https://zandrarhodes.com/ 

Natalie speaks to Nigel Oddy, currently CEO of the UK and Europe’s leading golf retailer American Golf, and previously CEO of House of Fraser, New Look, Matalan and The Range.

The video version of this episode is available on YouTube and is part of a special collaboration with the Richmond Retail & E-commerce Directors' Forum. Nigel will be speaking at the event alongside leaders from across the industry - Tesco, Charlotte Tilbury, TikTok, N Brown and more. 

In this episode, Nigel gives us a sneak preview of what we'll be discussing at the event. He shares what it was like running New Look during the pandemic, his biggest successes, what motivates him, the importance of spending time on the shop floor and why you must treat your shoppers as VIPs.

More on Nigel:

Nigel’s journey began on the shop floor of M&S and through hard work, determination, and a desire to succeed progressed from shop assistant to executive.

Leading by example to inspire people towards engaging in strategy, strong critical thinking, and excellent interpersonal skills. His keys to success: integrity, honesty, hardworking, strong work ethic and loyalty.

American Golf is the ultimate one stop destination for delivering 5 star products, services, and omnichannel experiences.

More on Retail Disrupted:

If you missed my previous conversations with some of our Richmond speakers, you can catch up on YouTube (also available on Apple/Spotify):

The Future of Retail with Chris Browne (former Global Retail Director at Ted Baker)

N Brown Retail CEO Sarah Welsh on Women in Retail

If you enjoyed this episode, please don't forget to leave a quick rating and subscribe to the show.

For more, visit www.nbkretail.com

Chris Browne, former Global Retail Director at Ted Baker, joins Natalie to discuss:

• Visual AI and the opportunities for fashion retail  
• How tech can enhance the shopping experience
• Addressing the perennial problem of returns
• What Western retailers can learn from Asia
• Chris’ vision for the future of the high street

Prefer video? You can also watch Natalie and Chris' conversation on YouTube.

This episode is part of a special collaboration with the Richmond Retail & E-commerce Directors' Forum. Chris will be speaking at the event alongside leaders from across the industry - Tesco, Charlotte Tilbury, TikTok, N Brown and more.

Chris’ bio:

Chris Browne is a retail obsessive and was involved from the very beginning of

Ted Baker in 1988.  He headed up the Retail Team for over 30 years as Global Retail

Director. Key achievements include the successful expansion of the brand internationally, in particular in the USA and Canada, Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

During this time, Chris was responsible for many aspects of Ted’s unique style of

retail such as ‘moving windows’ ‘gifts with purchase’, exciting design-led stores

and he is considered one of the leading lights of the drive to create ‘Retail Theatre’!

With its innovative, and sometimes controversial, windows and direct marketing,

which included the handing out of condoms with every purchase in support of

Aids Charities, and an early decision never to advertise, Ted truly led the way in

‘Experiential Retail’.

Chris left Ted Baker in 2017 and has been busy since then as Non-Exec Director of several companies including Angels Face and &Sons, as well as providing global retail insight for leading consulting firms and private equity houses, such as Advent International.

His Angel investments include a Padel Tennis Club in Australia and the recently

launched ‘Jelly Drops’, hydrating sweets for Dementia sufferers.

Chris has had a lifelong interest/obsession with the future and has an abiding

passion for retail/commerce and its evolution, in particular the future use of

stores and their role in the wider context of a brand’s overall ‘UNIFIED’ offer.

He sometimes feels he is alone in being excited by all the change and progression

that is happening in retail but enjoys sharing his vision with fellow retailers

through keynote speeches and his advisory work.

Previous to his Ted Baker career, Chris worked for The Tube, a London-based

fashion shoe business and John Farmer Shoes, formerly part of The Clarks Group.

Natalie speaks to TV dragon, retail magnate and small business champion Theo Paphitis live on stage at Springfair. They discuss:

• Digital transformation and the impact on retail
• Why stores are assets in today's digital era
• High street struggles - business rates, rents and levelling the playing field
• Failing fast in business
• What will retail look like in 2034?

Theo is the Chairman and Owner of Ryman, Robert Dyas, Boux Avenue and London Graphic Centre and founder of #SBS Small Business Sunday. Full bio:

Theo was born in Cyprus in 1959. His business empire spans retail, property, finance and consumer goods. Having left school at the age of 16 with no qualifications due to his dyslexia, he began work as a filing clerk in a Lloyds of London brokerage.

Having realised very quickly that filing was not his forte, he left and took up a job working for Watches of Switzerland where he discovered his passion for retail. After several years the opportunity arose for Theo to return to insurance, in a more customer facing role, where he gained invaluable experience in finance and property.

Returning to retail a few years later, he has revived the fortunes of notable high street names such as Ryman, Partners the Stationers, Stationery Box, La Senza, Contessa Lingerie and more recently the home and garden retailer Robert Dyas. Theo also bought Red Letter Days out of administration in 2005, with fellow TV Dragon Peter Jones, turning it around and selling in 2017. In the Spring of 2011 he also launched what has now become the multi award winning, global lingerie brand Boux Avenue.

In 2015, Theo launched Theo Paphitis Retail Group which encompasses Ryman Stationery, Robert Dyas, Boux Avenue and London Graphic Centre, acquired in 2016. The combined group comprises over 300 stores and 4,000 employees who serve millions of customers a year.

Theo’s other passion, sport, led him to having 8 marvellous years as Chairman of Millwall Football Club, achieving promotion to the Championship and the FA Cup Final against Manchester United as well as qualifying for Europe. Along with football, Theo closely follows many sports and was co-founder of sports marketing company Movie & Media Sports in the late nineties. In 2013, Theo returned to the sports industry following the investment he made into MB Partners, the boutique sports management agency, where he is now Chairman.

**Please note this interview was recorded in front of a live audience and we unfortunately experienced some AV glitches that were beyond our control. The format of this episode is therefore different to the norm but the overall impact should be minimal. We hope you enjoy it and please do consider leaving a rating on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.** 

Prefer video? You can watch Sarah and Natalie's conversation on YouTube.

This episode is part of a collaboration with the Richmond Retail & E-commerce Directors' Forum. Sarah Welsh, CEO of Retail at N Brown, gives us a sneak peek into what she'll be discussing at the event on 18 April 2024. She and Natalie explore:

• What are the barriers to getting women in retail leadership positions?
• The importance of representation - how should we nurture future female leaders?
• Who has inspired Sarah throughout her career?
• How has the shift to flexible and hybrid working impacted women?
• How does N Brown drive the wider EDI&B agenda?

If you are a retailer and would like to join us at the event, we have a handful of spaces left. Please drop Natalie an email: [email protected] or message her on LinkedIn or Twitter/X.

And remember to check back for two more retail speaker previews on the podcast later in the month!

Links:

Richmond Retail & E-commerce Directors' Forum

N Brown Group

Sarah Welsh on LinkedIn

BRC D&I Charter

Prefer video? Watch Helen and Natalie's conversation on YouTube.

Helen Dickinson OBE, CEO of the British Retail Consortium, joins the podcast to discuss the BRC’s 2024 manifesto. Topics include: 

• Business rates: how is the retail industry disproportionately affected and what does reform look like?
• Retail jobs and impact of AI: how can the industry continue to attract and retain talent?
• Shoplifting and staff abuse: what more can be done to deter retail theft?
• ESG: how can retailers accelerate their transition to net zero and what are the BRC’s policy recommendations? 
• Tax-free shopping: did the government underestimate the impact of scrapping this and might we see a U-turn?
• The everywhere economy: what is the BRC’s vision for the future of retail?

For more, visit https://brc.org.uk/

Follow Helen on LinkedIn 

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave us a rating or review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Retail analyst and consultant Nick Bubb joins the show to discuss:

• Christmas trading results - winners and losers.
• Why electricals retailing is poised for a comeback in 2024.
• What JD Sports' and Burberry's profit warnings tell us about the state of retail.
• What went wrong at John Lewis and whether Peter Ruis can revive the brand.
• Frasers' stake-building strategy - what is the end game for Asos and Boohoo? 
• Supermarket switching and the importance of physical stores in food retail.

Links:

Connect with Nick on LinkedIn

KPMG/RetailNext Retail Think Tank

Paul Martin, KPMG's Global Head of Retail, joins Natalie for a wide-ranging discussion on:

• Bifurcation of retail winners and losers
• Why consumers will be battening down the hatches in H1
• Breaking down the BRC-KPMG December sales data
• Promotions, margins, and the importance of stock visibility
• Economic outlook and impact of attacks on container ships in the Red Sea
• Opportunities for retailers in 2024 and beyond

Links:

Connect with Paul on LinkedIn

Paul's perspective on the BRC-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor (Dec '23)

KPMG / Retail Next Retail Think Tank

Natalie's TV interview - expectations ahead of Tesco and M&S results, BBC World Business Report

BBC: Can pop-up shops help to regenerate our High Streets?