SPEAKERS

Jeremy Cobbold, Chief Supply Chain and Planning Officer, The Entertainer

Having studied at Southampton University and Westminster Business School, Jeremy’s career has always been in logistics, starting as a freight forwarding manager.

Now, with 30 years of experience in retail and supply chain operations across domestic and international markets, Jeremy has dealt with numerous challenges and obstacles to ensure that everything is where it needs to be and when it needs to be there.

In 2019, Jeremy was appointed as Chief Supply Chain and Planning Officer for one of Europe’s largest toy retailers, The Entertainer.

Victoria Aldrich, Electrical Category Director, The Very Group

Victoria oversees all aspects of the category, which encompasses everything from mobiles and games consoles to washing machines and TVs, to deliver significant sales and new customer growth. Victoria is also responsible for developing strong strategic partnerships with big brands including Apple, Samsung, PlayStation and Microsoft. 

Since joining Very as a merchandising assistant, Victoria has undertaken a number of senior buying and commercial roles including Head of Category for Home Appliances, before becoming Electrical Category Director in 2021.

David James, Group Supply Chain Director, Boohoo Group

Having started as a graduate at Asda in 1998, David James has gone on to work across end-to-end supply chains for more than 20 years.

David held senior roles at Matalan and then Sainsbury’s before joining Primark in 2014 and then being appointed to his current role as Group Supply Chain Director at the Boohoo Group in June 2019.

Sean Wallis, Supply Chain Director, The Perfume Shop

Sean joined The Perfume Shop in 2018 as Supply Chain Director having spent 29 years at Argos in a variety of supply chain leadership roles.

His responsibilities include the leadership of the logistics and merchandising teams responsible for the procurement of stock from suppliers to meet the company’s sales targets, and the fulfilment of store and ecommerce orders through its warehouse, stores and fulfilment centres.

Nicola Harrison, Head of Commercial Content, Retail Week

As head of commercial content Nicola leads Retail Week's growing content marketing business Connect. Her team produces intelligent and timely thought leadership content for a range of big clients such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft through products including comprehensive reports and live and virtual events.

Nicola has 14 years' experience as a business journalist. She has held positions including news editor and content editor at Retail Week, during which time she led the editorial team to a digital-first approach.

James Knowles, Head of Content Innovation, Retail Week

James Knowles is Head of Content Innovation at Retail Week. He has spent 14 years working across both consumer celebrity and lifestyle magazines and business trade titles. This has included Australia’s longest-running women’s and celebrity title New Idea and fashion business publication Drapers, before joining Retail Week in 2017.

He leads Retail Week’s virtual events strategy and heads up innovation, ensuring the brand’s content output is market-leading when it comes to product format, design and marketing.

Luke Tugby, Editor, Retail Week

Luke joined the title as a reporter in January 2015, primarily covering the grocery and property sectors. He was promoted to head of content in February 2017 and became deputy editor two years later. Luke has served as editor since January 2020. 

Luke graduated from Bournemouth University with a degree in multimedia journalism in 2010 and started his career as a news reporter at the Southern Daily Echo in Southampton. He went on to spend 18 months as programme editor of Crystal Palace Football Club, and also served as interim head of editorial at the Andover Advertiser prior to joining Retail Week.

Vincent Barnes, Industry and Solution Strategy Director – Fashion Retail, Infor

Vincent has worked in retail and fashion for over 25 years, helping many leading global brands develop pragmatic business, IT and digital transformation strategies covering the entire retail lifecycle, covering: planning, innovation and product development, supply chain collaboration, omnichannel merchandising and inventory management, logistics and converged commerce. He leads strategy for Infor’s fashion retail industry, focused on leveraging CloudSuite Fashion solutions from Infor.