Retail speakers

A native of south-west France, the young Alain Ducasse went on to work under some of the most-respected chefs of his time – Michel Guérard, Gaston Lenôtre, Roger Vergé and Alain Chapel – before taking over at Louis XV in Monaco in 1987. Within less than four years, he had earned three Michelin stars. Today, he holds 19 Michelin stars across 23 restaurants in 8 countries.

Andrew McMillan spent 28 years working for the John Lewis Partnership, starting as a management trainee to becoming responsible for customer experience across the department store division. Andrew's aim is to make individuals and organisations happier and more fulfilled through a sense of collective purpose, so they engender trust, loyalty and advocacy from their customers while becoming more productive and, as a consequence, more profitable. He helps organisations join up their own internal dots to create their unique link between employee engagement and consistently great customer experience.

Brent Hoberman shot to fame as one of the bright young faces of the 'dot-com' boom, when he co-founded lastminute.com. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Brent's venture survived after the boom subsided, and he has strengthened and broadened his company since. Operating across multiple markets, lastminute.com has established approximately 13,600 supplier relationships and over 10 million subscribers.

Cate’s experience of setting up two successful businesses in her twenties led to her being named a Future 100 and Startup 100 entrepreneur. She’s been quoted 4 times in Forbes magazine and is a RetailWire BrainTrust expert. LinkedIn named her one of the top 15 most listened to professionals in the UK. Vend ranked her as the world’s 26th most influential professional in retail.

Chris is a leading authority on Sales Management, Customer Experience, Employee Engagement & Satisfaction particularly within organisations where change is on the agenda.

Clare Bailey, The Retail Champion, is one of the most well-known and respected retail experts in the UK. Clare is renowned for her quick thinking, and an ability to backup her arguments with facts and figures. With unrivalled knowledge in retail, high streets and consumer matters, she offers unbiased and independent content.

Until late 2014, Dan spent over 8 years at Google. For the last three years he was Managing Director, UK & Ireland – the biggest market for Google outside the US and the most advanced major country in terms of e-commerce and online advertising spending.

Darren speaks on all things Timpson, the unique story behind Timpson's innovative approach to recruitment having worked closely with James Timpson OBE and Sir John Timpson CBE for many years. Service retailer Timpson's presence on the high street is highly regarded and trusted, the company employed not just ex-offenders, but people currently serving time for everything from tax fraud to homicide. Darren's key speaking topics include Timpson's maverick approach to bottoms up leadership to recruitment and looked after children and the Alex Timpson Trust.

In July 2017 David was appointed by Warner Bros and the Blair Partnership (agents for JK Rowling) in what is set to be a landmark role leading digital innovation across the Wizarding World franchise, including Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts. Prior to that David was Managing Director of Membership, Marketing and Consumer Revenue at the Guardian, responsible for all reader revenue. David played a key role in two of Britain's most high-profile campaigns: Director of Marketing at the London 2012 Olympic bid, and Director of Commercial and Marketing at the England 2018 FIFA World Cup bid.

Deborah Meaden is a British multi-millionairess who launched her own glass and ceramics export company whilst still in her teens and straight out of business college, before setting up one of the first Stefanel fashion franchises in the UK. She became a household name through her presence on BBC2's Dragons Den.

Eamonn Quinn is currently an Executive Chariman of Kelsius Limited and has a wealth of experience within the food retail sector.

Elle Macpherson is a prominent figure in business, fashion, film and television. She oversees one of the most well-known, and expanding, brand names in apparel and women’s fashion. More importantly, she is the mother of two sons and an ambassador for three global charitable organisations.

Fraser Doherty is an entrepreneur and the founder of SuperJam. He started at the age of 14 selling home-made jam to neighbours, and now supplies over a million pots each year to 2,000 supermarkets across the world - from Russia to Australia.

Gavin Duffy is best known for taking businesses from concept in the Den to success in retail or online in just a matter of months.

Gerald Ratner is a British Businessman who took over the family business of Ratners Jewellery, becoming one of Britain's most high-profile businessmen. He took the company from 130 stores to one with over 2,500, and increased its revenue by over tenfold. Despite losing his business, he has been immensely successful with his string health clubs and new jewellery store, 'Gerald Online', which is the largest in its sector.

Harriet Green OBE has a proven track record for developing and implementing strategies for profitable growth and increasing shareholder value in global technology, logistics, travel and consumer sectors. Harriet received her OBE for services to electronics in 2010.

A true rags-to-riches story, Herman Mashaba created the cosmetics brand Black Like Me. He started by selling his products from the boot of his car, and it mushroomed into the multimillion Rand enterprise it is today. Recently, he has also started up operations in the UK.

James Timpson is not only the Chief Executive of Timpson but also a cobbler and prison recruiter with a firm belief in upside down management.

The success of Phones 4U was as much the barometer as anything else. Starting with the opportunistic sale of a job lot of bricklike Motorola handsets, Mr Caudwell tapped into the sudden boom in mobile communications to build a national retail chain selling 26 phones every minute and employing as many as 3,000 in his home town of Stoke alone.

With over thirty years of experience working in and leading large businesses, Justin brings in-depth knowledge of retail transformation and operations as well as a good historic understanding of the M&S business and values. Justin is currently Vice Chairman of Terra Firma, where he acts as an adviser to the General Partner. Prior to this, Justin was the CEO of Sainsbury’s between 2004 and 2014, where he led the business through a major turnaround which led to nine years of profit growth. Before joining Sainsbury’s, Justin was Head of Food at Marks & Spencer where he was one of the pioneers of the development of the Simply Food business. He held prior roles at Asda, Haagen-Dazs, PepsiCo and Mars and was a board member of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Justin was also a member of the UK Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Group.

Kate is a futurist with a technology, consumer, retail and brand specialization, making complex societal shifts and emerging technologies relatable for any audience.

As a CEO, chairman, founder and investor Kevin has enjoyed success in sectors including automotive, data, technology, manufacturing, brand marketing and professional services. He has repeatedly led teams to achieve extraordinary performance in companies ranging from 7 to 7,000 employees. One recognised as the best private equity investment of the year, another nominated as the World’s 7th most innovative company. Passionate about the development of leadership skills he is frequently sought to reinvigorate teams and companies.

In 2006, Levi became a Dragon Slayer; he won the heart and investment of Peter Jones with his Reggae Reggae Sauce pitch. Since then, the sauce has become a nationally loved product, seeing Levi venture into releasing cook books and recipes with his new-found culinary acclaim.

tuart Rose has spent all his career in retail joining Marks & Spencer plc in 1971. He left to join the Burton Group in 1989, becoming a director in 1993. Following the Group’s demerger in 1997 he became Chief Executive of Argos plc during the bid by GUS. In 1998 he became Chief Executive of Booker plc which was merged with the Iceland Group in 2000. He then became Chief Executive of Arcadia Group plc in November 2000 and left in December 2002 following its sale to Sir Philip Green. He was named Chief Executive of Marks & Spencer plc in May 2004 and became Chairman in 2008, standing down in January 2011. He was Chairman of The British Fashion Council from 2004 – 2008, Chairman of Business in the Community from 2008 – 2010 and a Non-Executive Director of Land Securities from 2003-2013. He is Chairman of Ocado, Fat Face, Oasis Healthcare Group and a Non-Executive Director of Woolworths (South Africa). He is also Chairman of The Healing Foundation, a medical charity.

Retail expert Mary Portas is probably the UK’s foremost authority on retail and brand communication. As founder of one of London’s most respected retail & brand communication agencies, Yellowdoor, Mary is recognised throughout the trade as the Queen of Shops.

Michelle Mone is the creator of Ultimo, the UK's leading designer lingerie brand. Listed as one of the top 3 female entrepreneurs in the UK, Michelle has built a hugely successful career on an incredibly simple concept: giving today's women what they want. 2009 was a giant milestone for Michelle professionally; not only was Ultimo the first UK lingerie brand to debut on the catwalk at New York Fashion Week, but she opened 20 'shop in shops' within Debenhams in key cities throughout the UK and landed a mammoth deal with Tesco clothing to develop, design and manufacture 'Diamond Boutique' lingerie.

Nick works with global brands, helping their teams to achieve greater success by enabling them to understand WHO is in their team, WHAT their team exists to do and HOW effectively they are working together. Nick’s spoken at over 500 conferences worldwide, often receiving the “Top Speaker” accolade. He has been called “Mr Infotainment”, based on his style of presentation, which is entertaining whilst providing information, hints and tips that can be applied immediately with positive results.

Nick Jenkins is the founder of Moonpig.com, the online greeting card website – an idea that started whilst at university.

Peter Casey is the Founder and Chairman of Claddagh Resources and is also a writer and business and political commentator.

Roman Nicholas is a self-made, award winning entrepreneur with an interest in retail.

Richard Branson is best known as the founder of Virgin Group, which comprises more than 400 companies. His first business venture was a magazine called Student at the age of 16. In 1970, he set up a mail-order record business. In 1972, he opened a chain of record stores, Virgin Records, later known as Virgin Megastores. Richard's Virgin brand grew rapidly during the 1980s, as he set up Virgin Atlantic and expanded the Virgin Records music label. Richard is now the 6th richest person in the UK, according to the Forbes 2013 list of billionaires, with an estimated net worth of £2.8 billion.

Mumpreneur, Investor and Dragon, Sarah has won multiple entrepreneurial and business awards and has appeared on television programmes as a business expert including 'The Restaurant' and Dragon's Den. Sarah is a popular speaker in the UK and internationally on topics including all aspects of money saving, Leadership and Teamwork, Business Turnarounds, Food, Restaurant, Retail, Leisure industries and Entrepreneurism.

Sir John Timpson is chairman of a close-knit family business that stretches back to the end of the 19th century. But it is one of the least traditional companies in the UK.

Touker Suleyman has 40 years' retail and manufacturing experience and is best known as the founder of quintessentially British menswear brand, Hawes & Curtis and the man credited with reinventing the seminal 90s womenswear label, Ghost.