On this encore episode, I sit down with a colleague from back in my work on the brand side, Craig Baxter, Group President of Techtronic Industries Canada Inc., part of a global 13 billion dollar powerhouse tool house of brands that includes Milwaukee, Ryobi, and Hoover. In a wide-ranging and engaging conversation, Craig talks about radical innovation, retail go-to-market strategy, leadership for growth, and the epic come-from-behind marketplace win for his Milwaukee brand of power tools as the sixth horse in a five-horse race.

In this episode meet Anabel Maldonado, Founder and CEO of PSYKHE AI, a groundbreaking platform that merges psychology with artificial intelligence to revolutionize e-commerce merchandising. From her Toronto roots to a fashion-tech career spanning London and New York, Anabel shares how her company uses the Big Five personality traits to drive hyper-personalized, real-time product recommendations. Learn how this emotional data layer boosts conversions and what retailers must do to embrace AI innovation.

In this episode of The Voice of Retail, Canadian retail journalist and analyst Phil Wahba, Senior Writer at Fortune, delves into the dynamic interplay of leadership, consumer demands, and real estate strategies shaping modern retail from his desk in New York. From Walmart's operational consistency to department store closures, Hudson's Bay (which didn't have to end this way) and turnarounds at Gap and Foot Locker, Phil highlights the critical importance of clear value propositions and quality execution. With insights into emerging brands and evolving technology, this conversation provides a roadmap for thriving in today's highly competitive retail landscape and is a do-not-miss episode!

In this encore episode of The Voice of Retail, Michael LeBlanc sits down with Dr. Rebecca Homkes, high-growth strategy specialist and author of Survive, Reset, Thrive: Leading Breakthrough Growth Strategy in Volatile Times. Rebecca discusses how businesses can overcome today’s unprecedented uncertainty by adopting a mindset of preparation rather than rigid planning. Perfectly suited for the turbulent times retailers are navigating, this episode delivers powerful insights into fostering innovation and leveraging strategic resets for sustained growth.

It's Fraud Prevention Month, and in this episode of The Voice of Retail, host Michael LeBlanc chats with Moneris, Vice President of Customer Experience, Yale Holder, about the latest fraud prevention trends. They reveal how overall reported fraud has dropped, thanks to enhanced security tools and growing retailer awareness. However, in-person refund fraud and terminal theft are rising, illustrating how criminals shift tactics. Yale explains practical, low-cost strategies—like password protection and secure payment gateways—that every retailer can adopt to protect revenue and brand reputation.

In The Voice of Retail podcast first, Michael LeBlanc presents an episode entirely generated by Google's Notebook LM AI using only a PDF of his annual Retail Council of Canada NYC NRF Big Show retail tour. Despite minor geographical mix-ups and a bit of weirdness at the very end, the AI creates a remarkably coherent retail analysis, creating two virtual guests who have an engaging conversation about the tour and showcase the technology's impressive potential.

Silk & Snow’s co-founder and CEO, Albert Chow, returns to The Voice of Retail to discuss the company’s remarkable transition from a digital-first brand with now a major physical retail expansion. With 14 new store openings on the horizon in 2025, Albert shares insights on supply chain strategy, local sourcing, customer experience, and the evolving retail landscape.

Lindsey Mazza, Global Retail Lead at Capgemini, joins The Voice of Retail to discuss their latest consumer study, "What Matters to Today's Consumer 2025" highlighting AI's role in retail, the rising demand for ultra-fast delivery, and the future of retail media. She breaks down evolving consumer behaviours and how retailers must adapt to stay competitive.

In this episode meet Cheryl Ong Seng, VP of Retail at Circana, about Canadian consumer trends, data-driven retail strategies, and evolving shopper behaviours. They dive into personalization, pricing models, private labels, and the economic factors shaping retail today.

In this episode, I sit down with retail expert, fellow NRF Top Voice, and ReThink Top Retail Expert Liza Amlani to discuss her new book, The Whole Sale: Profitable Wholesale Strategies for Brands. We explore retail fundamentals, wholesale growth strategies, brand partnerships, getting and keeping listings with retailers, merchandising strategies and insider tips, and how direct-to-consumer brands can successfully scale into physical retail while maintaining profitability.

In this episode of The Voice of Retail, I reconnect with Daryl Aitken, founder of Fabric Spark, to discuss the evolution of retail from e-commerce to physical storefronts. Daryl shares insights on building a successful retail business, leveraging community engagement, and the growing demand for sustainable and artisanal textiles. From advertising and eBay leadership to launching a thriving fabric business, hear how she navigated challenges, adapted during COVID-19, and built a loyal online and offline customer base.

On this episode, I welcome back one of my favourite guests on the pod, my good friend Montreal-based Carl Boutet. Carl is a retail strategist, professor, and author of his latest soon-to-be best-seller, Blind Spot: Navigating the Unseen Effects of Technology on Commerce.". We discuss Carl's journey into academia, retail trends from NRF 2025, AI's evolving role, and the future of technology in commerce. Carl also shares insights on curiosity, innovation, and digital transformation.

In this episode, meet Sgt. Craig Reynolds & Arezo Zarrabian, a Senior Crime Analyst from the Vancouver Police Department. Together, they take us behind the scenes for a comprehensive discussion of both the criminal justice system & an update reflecting the work of their innovative and data-driven task force, Project Barcode, investigating and fighting violent retail crime on the streets of Vancouver.

On this episode of The Voice of Retail podcast, Michael LeBlanc interviews Drew Cashmore, a retail media expert and current strategy leader at Vantage. They explore the evolution of retail media, from foundational shopper marketing to data-driven advertising ecosystems like Walmart Connect, which Drew helped build. Key topics include the role of first-party data, challenges of managing fragmented retail media systems, and opportunities for smaller retailers to embrace self-serve platforms. Drew highlights the importance of cultural change within organizations to unify marketing, merchandising, and operations while emphasizing incremental growth through technology and collaboration. Vantage’s tools aim to streamline these processes effectively.

Something different for this Holiday season on the #pod as I head into my eighth year of The Voice of Retail and prepare for the year ahead - a guest host, cross-over thought leader insight bonus series of episodes from my award-winning Remarkable Retail #podcast. If you have been following this short special series—or if you just think about what distinguishes organizations that are winning the future from the also-rans, it is very often that they act more boldly, they take more chances, they fail regularly, they adjust, they fail some more. They believe, as my friend Seth Godin says, “If failure is not an option, then neither is success.” Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is not to avoid failure; it is to fail better.

Something different for this Holiday season on the #pod as I head into my eighth year of The Voice of Retail and prepare for the year ahead - a guest host, cross-over thought leader insight bonus series of episodes from my award-winning Remarkable Retail #podcast. In Clayton Christensen's classic "The Innovator's Dilemma," he explains how successful companies often fail by becoming overly locked into their established business models and optimizing the heck out of them, thereby ignoring more risky disruptive innovations. The speed of disruption when Christensen wrote his book wasn't exactly glacial, but it was far, far slower than it is today. Today, we are confronted with a New Innovator's Dilemma. Disruption is unrelenting, and the pace of change is often more exponential than linear. The evidence is overwhelming, and the verdict is in. Safe is risky. And more and more, fortune favors the bold.

Something different for this Holiday season on the #pod as I head into my eighth year of The Voice of Retail and prepare for the year ahead - a guest host, cross-over thought leader insight bonus series of episodes from my award-winning Remarkable Retail #podcast. In this episode, we’ll explore why the work of meaningful transformation IS serious work and why it requires that we become serious, courageous leaders who break through our denial, wake up to new and emerging realities, and, ultimately, do what it takes to position our organizations to aim higher, move faster, and act more boldly.

Something different for this Holiday season on the #pod as I head into my eighth year of The Voice of Retail and prepare for the year ahead - a guest host, cross-over thought leader insight bonus series of episodes from my award-winning Remarkable Retail #podcast. In his new book Leaders Leap, Steve proposes a series of 7 Mind Leaps that are essential to transforming you and your organization. There is a powerful reason that Crush Your Ego is mind leap #1.

Something different for this Holiday season on the #pod as I head into my eighth year of The Voice of Retail and prepare for the year ahead - a guest host, cross-over thought leader insight bonus series of episodes from my award-winning Remarkable Retail #podcast. Our world today looks very different than it did when e-commerce first emerged, when smart devices started to transform how we communicate, or when pervasive connectedness and operating in the cloud began their inexorable march toward ubiquity. So, it’s worth asking: “If the world has changed so much, why have so many leaders changed so little.” Shift happens. And it’s happening faster and faster all the time.

Something different for this Holiday season on the #pod as I head into my eighth year of The Voice of Retail and prepare for the year ahead - a guest host, cross-over thought leader insight bonus series of episodes from my award-winning Remarkable Retail #podcast. This past summer, Steve Dennis and I released a series of six bonus episodes with leadership insights adapted from his newest best-seller, Leaders Leap. In a world where anything less than delivering highly differentiated and truly remarkable customer value is often ignored, sucking less, merely closing the gap on competitive performance (what Steve calls “innovating to parity”) or offering a slightly better version of mediocre is choosing to move into a zone of irrelevance, or perhaps even putting your organization on the path to outright extinction.