The Voice of Retail

What does it take to change how a country sees its largest private-sector employer? Kim Furlong, President & CEO of Retail Council of Canada, joins Michael LeBlanc on The Voice of Retail to mark her first year leading RCC, and to make the case that Canadian retail deserves a very different reputation than the one it has.

Kim’s path to the corner office runs through trade policy. A Quebecer from the Gaspé, she studied at McGill, earned a master’s at Carleton’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs with a focus on NAFTA, worked on the G8 summit in Kananaskis, and served as director of communications to federal trade and foreign affairs ministers. After a change in government, Diane Brisebois recruited her to open RCC’s first Ottawa office. A decade leading external affairs at Amgen Canada followed, then a role as CEO of the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, where she watched many of the AI and technology companies now selling to retailers get their start.

Kim explains why RCC’s board wanted a change agent rather than a caretaker, and why it asked for a full strategic plan in her first year instead of waiting. After a year-long review of the organization’s operations, finances and programs, the board has approved a new three-pillar strategy. At its centre: changing the narrative about retail from simple, low-pay and low-value to complex, supply chain–driven and one of the fastest adopters of technology in the economy.

The conversation covers the “silent champions” of Canadian retail, from Aritzia and Lululemon to Aldo, La Vie en Rose and Groupe Dynamite, brands growing around the world from a home market that punches above its weight. Kim and Michael discuss what Walmart’s move to the Nasdaq says about the whole sector, how retailers’ supply chain knowledge is reaching federal ministers and the Bank of Canada, and why RCC wants to help set the agenda on port and rail infrastructure instead of reacting when disruption hits.

Affordability is the issue that keeps Kim up at night. She explains why grocers take the blame for shelf prices when roughly 75 per cent of costs are set before products arrive, what operating on 3 per cent margins really means, how fuel spikes hit retailers serving remote northern communities, and how RCC’s Ottawa team helped roll back 25 per cent steel tariffs on everyday goods containing only a sliver of metal. She also reflects on how much the industry has changed since her first stint at RCC, when grocery and pharmacy weren’t yet members and the end of the penny was the big worry.

This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation with Kim Furlong. Follow The Voice of Retail so you don’t miss Part 2.

Presented by Konek, Canada's Way to Pay. Visit Konek.ca to learn more.

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. 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 and 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail. 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.

Maxime Cohen, academic director of McGill’s Bensadoun School of Retail Management, has spent 16 years at the intersection of pricing, retail operations and AI. He and Michael LeBlanc agree that this moment in pricing technology is similar to the internet era, when prices became transparent and could be changed by code every few seconds. Generative AI is the next wave, and it puts those capabilities in far more hands.

His core idea: stop treating price as a number and build a system that learns. That system draws on cost data, competitors, customer behaviour and strategy to keep testing what shoppers will pay.

Making these tools available to everyone comes with caveats. Maxime’s research shows large language models tend to confirm the price a user already has in mind, and hallucination and collusion are real risks. Retailers still need guardrails, vendor constraints built in and clear human accountability.

Michael and Maxime also look ahead to agent-to-agent commerce, as AI shopping agents begin dealing directly with retailers’ agents. Maxime closes with five practical principles for retailers getting started.

Topics include:

• Generative AI for independent retailers
• Pricing as a learning system
• LLM confirmation bias in pricing
• Guardrails and pricing governance
• Agent-to-agent commerce

Presented by Konek, Canada's Way to Pay. Visit Konek.ca to learn more.

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. 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 and 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail. 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.

Canadian holiday shoppers aren’t retreating this season. They’re recalibrating. Suzana Colic, Managing Director and Retail Industry Lead at Accenture Canada, joins Michael LeBlanc on The Voice of Retail to unpack Accenture’s 20th annual holiday shopping survey and what it means for Canadian retailers heading into the most important stretch of the retail calendar.

Suzana’s path to consulting started on the shop floor at Holt Renfrew. She went on to be a merchant in Canadian Tire’s automotive category, earned an MBA, and has spent 16 years at Accenture helping some of North America’s largest retail and consumer companies through transformation.

The headline from the 2026 Accenture holiday survey: Canadians plan to spend about $717 on gifts, roughly flat with last year. The number of presents under the tree may not change much, but the thinking behind each purchase has. Shoppers are comparing prices earlier and more often, waiting for the right promotion, and trading down on one gift to trade up on another. Eighty-one per cent of Canadians plan to start holiday shopping before Black Friday and Cyber Monday, stretching the season well beyond its traditional six-week window.

Michael and Suzana debate whether Canadian retail should walk away from Black Friday, a promotional event that pulled spending forward from Boxing Day week without growing the pie. Suzana explains why an earlier season isn’t an easier one. Retailers face tougher calls on where to put inventory, whether to keep planned promotions and whether to discount products that are already selling. And no retailer can abandon Black Friday on its own.

The conversation then turns to AI in retail. Roughly 40 per cent of Canadian shoppers plan to use generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Claude to find deals, compare products and discover new items this holiday season. Is AI just another intermediary pushing everything toward price? Suzana argues that value goes well beyond price to include product specifications, availability and delivery options. She also shares how merchants are using AI to cut through the noise and focus on assortment, pricing and promotion.

Gift cards remain the top gift choice at 54 per cent. Shoppers use them to stay on budget, along with shopping at mass merchants, buying local and supporting the Buy Canadian movement. Michael makes a bold prediction worth bookmarking: as AI-powered gift discovery gets smarter, gift card sales have peaked.

Suzana closes with practical advice for retail CEOs: build the ability to change your mind quickly. Shoppers are starting earlier, comparing more and using new tools. That makes the ability to sense and respond to demand signals across inventory, promotion, labour and marketing worth more than a perfect plan locked in September.

Essential listening for Canadian retail executives, merchants and marketers planning for holiday 2026.

Suzana Colic is a Toronto-based Managing Director at Accenture, where she has spent nearly two decades helping retailers navigate change, improve how they operate, and position themselves for growth.

Suzana leads Accenture's Canadian Retail Strategy and Consulting practice, working with clients and teams to shape and deliver business transformation programs. Her experience spans retail strategy, merchandising, operations, and technology-enabled transformation.

Before joining consulting, Suzana began her career in retail merchandising, working at two major Canadian retailers across a variety of product categories. This experience continues to shape her perspective, grounding her approach to transformation in an understanding of how retail businesses operate day to day.

Presented by Konek, Canada's Way to Pay. Visit Konek.ca to learn more.

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. 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 and 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail. 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.

Andrew Clarke brings 30 years of retail experience. He started out delivering eggs for his family's business near Cheddar, England, then worked as a merchandiser at Marks & Spencer and later ran the apparel business at Kmart for Sears Holdings. He joined Calgary Co-op in March 2026 as a strategy consultant to the board before taking the top job, as the cooperative heads into its 70th year.

The big strategic question is how to coordinate two food businesses, two drink businesses, four pharmacy and healthcare businesses and a gas operation that have largely run independently, and turn them into one ecosystem that delivers value members can actually feel.

Andrew explains why the co-op model is a business model rather than a loyalty programme. He describes how bonus cash and fuel discounts connect the gas pump to the grocery basket, and he says members have told him Calgary Co-op must communicate value better without becoming a discount retailer.

He also discusses private brands Cal & Gary's and Founders & Farmers, the Care Pharmacy and Beacon pharmacy businesses, and what it has been like adapting to Canadian corporate culture after a dozen years in the U.S.

Topics include:

• Integrating a multi-banner retail portfolio
• The cooperative ownership model and member value
• Bonus cash, patronage and fuel savings
• Private brands and value perception
• Pharmacy as a trust-based business
• AI as an enhancer, not a replacement

Presented by Konek, Canada's Way to Pay. Visit Konek.ca to learn more.

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. 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 and 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail. 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.

How does an iconic Canadian outdoor retailer turn a return to Canadian ownership into lasting growth? On this episode of The Voice of Retail, host Michael LeBlanc sits down with Chris Speyer, Chief Merchandising Officer and Equity Partner at MEC (Mountain Equipment Company), and Michele Guimond, VP of Marketing at MEC. They talk candidly about brand trust, merchandising strategy, community building and what it takes to win in Canadian retail today.

Chris traces MEC's journey from beloved co-op to U.S. private equity ownership. In May 2025, a small group of equity partners, including Chris, brought it back to majority Canadian ownership. A proud fellow Ottawa native, Chris returned to Canada after nearly two decades in the U.S., including years as Chief Merchandising Officer at REI. He explains how MEC has refocused on climbing, hiking, camping and backpacking, and why it refuses to out-discount Amazon or Walmart. That discipline is delivering double-digit revenue growth and stronger full-price margins.

Michele, whose background includes Aritzia and Arc'teryx, explains why MEC never lost its "Canadianness" through the ownership changes. She says trust lives in the one-to-one moments between members and expert staff. She shares two powerful signals from the past 18 months: a re-engaged core of loyal members and a fast-growing cohort of new customers choosing MEC for the first time.

The conversation digs into the buy Canadian movement and how consumers really shop it. Canadian origin is a helpful decision filter, but quality, durability, sustainability and innovation come first. Chris spotlights Canadian trail running brands including Norda, Ciele, NAAK and Arc'teryx, alongside MEC's own label. He also unpacks how tariffs and supplier negotiations are reshaping retail buying.

Michele introduces Train for the Trails, MEC's free national community program. It offers digital training guides, expert coaches, and local group runs for everyone from first-time 5K runners to seasoned racers. Chris also weighs in on REI and the future of specialty outdoor retail in the U.S.

The episode closes with sharp holiday 2026 retail advice. Michele urges marketers to win authentically, build relationships instead of transactions and invest in post-holiday lifecycle marketing. Chris makes the case for curated accessories, uncompromising peak-season service and targeted promotions over blanket discounts. He also explains why expert store staff should check AI product recommendations.

And listen for a little breaking news: Chris reveals that MEC is opening a smaller-format store in Whistler Village this November, featuring a curated collection focused on MEC's own label.

Whether you're a retail executive, marketer, merchant or outdoor enthusiast, this is a masterclass in brand trust and purpose-driven growth. Listen now and subscribe to The Voice of Retail for more conversations with Canada's top retail leaders.

Presented by Konek, Canada's Way to Pay. Visit Konek.ca to learn more.

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. 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 and 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail. 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.

AI-powered discovery is no longer niche behaviour. It's now a mainstream step in the shopping journey, and holiday 2026 will be the first peak season where retailers compete for the attention of shoppers and AI agents alike. In this episode of The Voice of Retail, host Michael LeBlanc welcomes back Caila Schwartz, Head of Agentic Commerce and Shopper Insights at Salesforce, to unpack the latest Salesforce State of Commerce research and share what Canadian retailers can still do before Black Friday.

Caila, who has studied holiday shopping for more than a decade, explains why consumers adopted agentic AI so quickly, with AI-driven discovery up 200% year over year. The data shows Canadian commerce leaders ahead of the global average on agentic AI adoption, yet three times more likely to be stuck in pilot mode. Caila says the gap comes down to data strategy: launching an AI agent without clean, unified data is risky, especially under Canadian consumer protection and privacy rules.

With peak season approaching, Caila lays out a practical holiday readiness plan. First, turn on the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) to feed accurate product, pricing and inventory data directly into ChatGPT, as bot traffic from OpenAI, Gemini, Meta AI, TikTok and Amazon surges across ecommerce sites. Second, optimize product detail pages for AI agents with human-written, use-case-driven product descriptions and FAQ sections covering holiday shipping deadlines and policies. Third, manage customer reviews on your own site and on third-party platforms like Reddit and Trustpilot, because large language models are pulling that content into their answers about your brand.

The conversation also explores how product discovery is shifting: discovery on brand-owned properties is down 7%, traditional search is down 15%, and AI assistants and social are up 38%. Caila makes the case that retailers now need an SEO strategy, an LLM strategy and a social shopping strategy, all unified, and explains why customer service is becoming central to marketing.

Physical stores remain the heart of holiday retail, with more than 80% of Canadians preferring to shop in store. But 79% of shoppers are on their phones in the aisle, 12% are asking AI assistants for purchase advice, and 48% of Canadians research products before they arrive. Caila explains why consistent pricing and promotions across channels matter, and how unified customer profiles can empower store associates.

Finally, Michael and Caila tackle autonomous shopping. Will Canadians let an AI agent complete a purchase? Caila's research suggests shoppers want AI for discovery and personalized recommendations, but still want to own the checkout on the brand's website.

Whether you're a retail executive, ecommerce leader or marketer, this episode is your essential guide to agentic commerce, AI search, omnichannel retail and holiday 2026 strategy.

See All the data and insights here:

https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/agentic-search-growth/

Presented by Konek, Canada's Way to Pay. Visit Konek.ca to learn more.

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. 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 and 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail. 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.

Sustainability in retail and consumer packaged goods has spent years filed under advocacy, reporting and good intentions. Ann Tracy, Chief Sustainability Officer at Colgate-Palmolive, wants it filed under growth.

In this episode of The Voice of Retail, Ann joins me from Colgate-Palmolive's research centre in Piscataway, New Jersey, ahead of her appearance at the Retail Council of Canada Retail Sustainability Conference in Toronto, where she takes the stage October 28 for a fireside chat with RCC President and CEO Kim Furlong.

Ann brings an unusual lens to the sustainability conversation. An engineer by training, she has spent more than 35 years at Colgate-Palmolive, most of it in the global supply chain, with assignments across Asia, Europe, the UK and the United States spanning manufacturing, customer service, logistics and divisional supply chain leadership. That operating background shapes how she runs the file today, after the role moved from the supply chain into the company's growth and strategy team, making it broader, more enterprise-wide, and embedded in the business strategy itself.

She also gives listeners a useful reminder of the scale involved. Colgate-Palmolive marks 220 years in the United States this year, generates over twenty billion dollars in net revenue, employs roughly 34,000 people and sells in 200 countries across four core categories: oral care, home care, personal care with regional icons like Palmolive, Sanex and Irish Spring, and pet nutrition through Hill's Pet Nutrition, plus a growing premium skin health business. Colgate sits in more homes than any other brand in the world. At that volume, a small packaging design change ripples through plastic tonnage, pallet counts and the entire retail supply chain.

The heart of our conversation is the 2030 sustainability strategy, which Ann describes as an evolution rather than a revolution, building on the sunset 2025 plan across three ambition spaces: driving social impact, helping millions of homes, and preserving the environment. What distinguishes 2030 is a hard lean into value creation, and her insistence that sustainability teams learn to speak finance and marketing rather than acronyms and temperature scenarios.

We dig into the intention-action gap, where more than ninety percent of consumers say they support sustainability but far fewer act on it because they will not trade away price, convenience, quality or performance, nor should they. We also cover long-term resilience, the finite nature of plant, mineral, animal and fossil-fuel-based ingredients, and why retailers are essential partners in shaping value creation on physical and e-commerce shelves.

A smart, practical listen for retailers, CPG leaders, merchants and sustainability professionals heading to Toronto in October.

Connect with Ann Tracy on LinkedIn, and catch her with Kim Furlong at the Retail Council of Canada Retail Sustainability Conference on October 28.

https://rccretailsustainability.ca/

Presented by Konek, Canada's Way to Pay. Visit Konek.ca to learn more.

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. 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 and 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail. 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.

How do you lead when trust in business, government, and media is at a generational low? On this episode of The Voice of Retail, host Michael LeBlanc welcomes Keith Wyche, Fortune 500 board director, keynote speaker, and author of the new book Uncommon Leadership: A Blueprint for Restoring Integrity, Trust, and People-Centred Leadership.

Keith's retail story begins in the back room of one of Ohio's largest Sears stores, working the paint department as a college intern. From there, he built a career inside organizations in the middle of massive change: AT&T as the Bell monopoly broke apart, IBM as it shifted from hardware to solutions, then grocery at Cub Foods, where he spent his first months cutting meat, icing cakes, running a register, and stocking freight to understand the work before changing it.

He shares the hard feedback that explained why he kept hitting quota at IBM but never got promoted: without followership, there is no leadership. That lesson underpins his trust formula, character times competency times consistency, where a zero in any one factor cancels the other two. Keith and Michael dig into why leadership drifted from service to self-interest, pointing to quarterly earnings pressure, a celebrity culture that rewards charisma over character, and CEO pay that has climbed from roughly 25 times the average employee to 200.

The conversation turns to Walmart, which Keith joined in 2015, a year after Doug McMillon began pushing the company out of its brick-and-mortar comfort zone. He describes the unvarnished truth session, the burning platform, the jet.com talent infusion, and the storytelling that made the stakes real, including his reminder that Sears once had both the stores and the catalogue and is gone today.

For executives who want somewhere to start Monday morning, Keith offers a practical framework. Listen to associates, using the two questions he asks on every store walk. Listen to customers and vendors. Then clarify and simplify the mission the way Walmart turned everyday low cost into everyday low price. A Chicago self-checkout rollout that consulted neither associates nor shoppers serves as a cautionary tale.

They close on board composition in the AI era, the CEO, CFO, and operations seats plus the cybersecurity and AI expertise that may sit with a director in their thirties, and why customer-facing automation like shelf-scanning robots and AI greeters got piloted and pulled. As Keith says, AI can tell you a tomato is a fruit; wisdom tells you not to put it in the fruit salad.

His parting advice for the next generation of retail leaders is simple: human capital is the most important asset on the balance sheet. "I'm in the people business," he says. "I just happen to sell groceries."

Presented by Konek, Canada's Way to Pay. Visit Konek.ca to learn more.

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. 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 and 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail. 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.

In this Encore episode of The Voice of Retail, host Michael LeBlanc sits down with Liza Amlani, Chief Merchant and Principal of Retail Strategy Group, who returns to the podcast to share timely insights from her recently released book, "The Material Life: Process Innovation for Retailers and Brands" Recognized globally as a retail thought leader, Amlani brings her two decades of merchandising expertise to a provocative argument: the retail industry has been obsessed with what products it sells, while neglecting how those products are made—a blind spot costing brands both time and money.

Amlani illustrates how process innovation begins long before a product hits the shelf. Traditional apparel development starts with a design concept, hunting for materials to match. Her materials-first model flips that dynamic, accelerating time to market, reducing over-development, and eliminating redundant fabric, trim, and colour decisions. She cites examples where retailers were creating thousands of unnecessary material variations—like zippers—without realizing the margin erosion and operational chaos this creates.

Throughout the conversation, Amlani explains how silos between merchants, sourcing, materials, design, and marketing teams create a “butterfly effect” where one late-stage decision can unravel deadlines, sample production, and vendor negotiations. Breaking those silos strengthens governance, reduces waste, and aligns teams around measurable outcomes including her Material Adoption Rate (MAR) framework—an accountability tool that tracks how many material developments actually make it into assortments.

The episode also explores the rising influence of AI in fabric research and digital product creation, the impact of sourcing regulations emerging in North America and Europe, and how leading brands like lululemon are quietly reshaping their operating models through materials-led go-to-market roles. Amlani argues that brands embracing transparency, vendor partnership, and digital material workflows will unlock significant margin upside at a time when inflation, tariffs, supply chain friction, and fast-fashion disruptors are redefining consumer expectations.

Finally, the discussion turns to the road ahead. Amlani urges leaders to rethink the fabric of product creation itself, invest in consumer-centric assortments, and treat materials not as an afterthought but as a strategic asset. For retailers, merchants, product developers, and sourcing teams eager to future-proof their business, this episode is a masterclass in modern merchandising excellence.

Presented by Konek, Canada's Way to Pay. Visit Konek.ca to learn more.

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. 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 and 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail. 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.

Why do smart strategies fail so often? According to Kevin Ertell, the problem isn’t a lack of ideas—it’s execution.

In this Encore episode of The Voice of Retail, Michael LeBlanc sits down live in person at the NRF Big Show in New York in The Remarkable Retail Narvar podcasting studio with Kevin Ertell, founder of Mistere Advisory, veteran retail operator, and former Vice President of Global Retail at Nike. Kevin is also the author of the new book The Strategy Trap: Why Companies Fail at Execution and How to Get It Right, which draws on more than two decades of hands-on leadership experience across iconic retail brands including Tower Records, Borders, Sur La Table, and Nike.

Kevin explains how organizations fall into the “strategy trap”—a tendency to over-invest in ideas, decks, and executive alignment while underestimating the human and organizational work required to execute effectively. He argues that strategy should be treated as the first step of execution, not as a theoretical exercise completed before real work begins.

Using well-known retail case studies, including the failed transformation of JCPenney, Kevin illustrates how untested assumptions, poor internal alignment, and misunderstanding customer behavior can derail even bold strategies. Leaders often assume that communication equals understanding, when in reality teams fill in the gaps with their own interpretations—creating misalignment that only becomes visible once execution is underway.

The conversation introduces Kevin’s practical “Six Cs of Execution” framework. The first phase—co-creation, clarity, and capacity—focuses on setting the stage by involving the right people, defining priorities, and making space for execution. The second phase—communication, coordination, and coaching—highlights the role of active leadership in sustaining momentum and course-correcting as conditions change.

Kevin also shares actionable tools leaders can use immediately, including structured problem-definition sessions, force-ranking priorities, and creating safe environments where teams can challenge assumptions. He emphasizes that focus is a leadership discipline—and that trying to pursue too many initiatives at once almost guarantees failure.

For retail leaders navigating AI disruption, economic volatility, and shifting consumer expectations, this episode offers a clear, operator-led blueprint for escaping the strategy trap and turning strategy into results.

Presented by Konek, Canada's Way to Pay. Visit Konek.ca to learn more.

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. 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 and 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail. 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.