SPEAKERS

We’re bringing you an incredible speaker line-up of retailers, industry and property experts across the two morning masterclasses for Stores Week.

With more exciting names still to be announced, confirmed speakers include:

Gary Grant, founder and executive chair, The Entertainer

The Entertainer is the fastest-growing family-owned high street toy retailer in the UK. From the one store in 1981, The Entertainer has grown to 170 stores in the UK and has several international partners. 

Gary Grant is very much involved in the day-to-day detail of the business and the acquisition of the Early Learning Centre in 2019 continues to create excitement and opportunity.

Believing that business can be a force for good, Gary models and encourages generosity through payroll giving in the workplace; the pioneering of Pennies, the digital charity box for customers to round up purchases to the nearest pound at the till; and the donation of plastic carrier bag money to the children’s hospice movement. Mindful of giving back to the communities in which he trades, 10% of profits each year are distributed by way of The Grant Foundation, supporting hundreds of smaller charitable initiatives. Gary is also patron of several charities. 

Tanya Weller, director, Samsung Showcase KX

Tanya Weller was appointed to the role of director for Samsung Showcase in September 2018. Her key responsibility is to lead her team in the build, development, launch and operation of Samsung’s first UK brand showcase, Samsung KX – a 20,000 sq ft space at the heart of Coal Drops Yard in King’s Cross, London.

With over 15 years of experience across global leisure, technology and FMCG brands, Tanya brings a wealth of experience to Samsung. She has been instrumental in working with her team to bring the latest Samsung technologies to life with curated experiences that take inspiration from the local King’s Cross area.

Tanya’s creative and commercial acumen will ensure Samsung KX, envisaged as the ultimate place of discovery, delivers a brand experience like no other.

Prior to joining Samsung, Tanya was head of marketing for the London Eye.

Premal Patel, vice-president managing director, Catalina UK

Premal Patel is vice-president managing director at Catalina UK, a consultancy working with some of the UK’s leading retailers to drive genuine long-term shopper loyalty through innovative, personalised and effective in-store and digital shopper activation.  

Premal is a leading voice on multichannel customer personalisation and engagement. He has a 28-year career history working with world-leading retailers and brands including Sainsbury’s, NatWest, Visa and American Express, to better understand and respond to their shoppers, drive their long-term customer loyalty strategies and increase profitability.

He has an innate understanding of the ever-changing retail landscape and marries data and analytics with a deep appreciation of human behaviour in the retail sector, both on- and offline. 

Raakesh Savji Parmar, head of UK development strategy, Critizr

Raakesh is an entrepreneur and commercial leader with a passion for retail innovation and driving positive social change globally. He heads up the UK development strategy for Critizr.

Raakesh has a culture-first mentality, both personally and professionally. Culture is at the heart of everything he tries to achieve, and he believes this is the approach retailers should also adopt in order to succeed, living by the mantra: ‘Great companies put people first.’

At Critizr, Raakesh works with retailers across multiple sectors to help them drive customer obsession and create exceptional experiences for customers every day.

Ilyaas Salay, store manager, EE

Ilyaas Salay is a store manager working in the Birmingham region who has been with EE for 15 years. Ilyaas is passionate about coaching and developing people, supporting many of his team through EE’s award-winning career programme, Aspire, helping them to reach their full potential and watching their careers blossom.

He strongly believes in collaboration, teamwork, mindset and a can-do attitude – qualities he encourages within his team and embraces himself. As someone who started his career in the telco industry over 16 years ago, Ilyaas has seen the landscape of retail shift massively, yet he understands that customers remain at the heart of what EE does and will continue to do so as the business focuses on giving every single customer the best service and experience on the high street.

Deborah Jeyachandran, store manager and interim area manager, Co-op

Originally from Brazil and now living in London, Deborah Jeyachandran joined the Co-op in 2005 as a part-time customer service assistant while completing her studies in the capital. With over 15 years of retail experience, she has worked on the front line of retail operations as a store manager and area manager. She was also named Store Manager of the Year at the 2020 Retail Week Awards.

Aside from being a retail leader, Deborah champions women in retail and is part of Aspire, the grocer’s network group for women in business. She is also an advocate of diversity and inclusion and has been involved with Co-op’s ‘Safer Colleagues, Safer Communities’ campaign.

Richard Denton, UK head of retail, Arcadis

Arcadis is the leading global design consultancy for natural and built assets, operating across 70 countries globally.

Richard Denton is an experienced retail and property senior leader. With a career that spans over 30 years, he has held leadership retail property positions across a variety of notable companies, including Waitrose, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Dixons and TSB bank. In his role as the UK head of retail, he is accountable for the performance and success of all retained and new retail clients. He brings deep client-side knowledge to the role and places great emphasis and importance on always wanting to understand the needs of the client and how the Arcadis retail team can then support them, across a complete retail service offering.

Paul Crisp, retail and property director, B&Q

Paul Crisp is B&Q’s retail and property director. He has worked all across retail in almost every role imaginable and is well placed to share his leadership expertise in this sector.

His track record of delivery is second to none, evidenced by B&Q’s recent performance. He is passionate about people and great causes, having recently helped raise more than£100,000 for charity and ensuring that every B&Q store has a defibrillator.

Jacqueline Eyles, retail store manager, River Island

Jacqueline Eyles is the store manager for River Island in Watford. Jacqui has worked for River Island for 23 years, starting as a part-time sales adviser and progressing through the management structure from roles such as mobile deputy and an operational role in the company's Oxford Street flagship store.

Jacqueline embraces daily challenges to help her store grow within the River Island family, whether that is new technology, changes in customer shopping habits – which change often due to social media and fashion trends – or the Covid-19 pandemic. She says her River Island family has helped her grow into the person she is today: “I am so proud to be an Islander!”

Dan Jarvis, chief digital officer for Europe, AS Watson Group

Dan Jarvis’ retail career with AS Watson spans nearly two decades, with his experience encompassing roles across business functions from analytics, finance and marketing to CRM and ecommerce. He started his career with AS Watson working for the group’s biggest UK retail brand, Superdrug. After 10 years, Dan took on a group role to manage the growth of ecommerce for AS Watson across Europe and developing eLab, the centralised in-house digital team that offers global support to the group's ecommerce businesses, before taking on the role of chief digital officer for Europe in 2017.

Dan oversees the group’s digital technology, commercial and CRM teams and is instrumental in helping the brands to create and develop online and offline shopping experiences that help with serving the customers of today and in the future.

Megan Dunsby, commercial content editor, Retail Week

Megan Dunsby is Retail Week’s commercial content editor. A former journalist and features editor, she joined Retail Week in January 2019 to help brands leverage content to reach the people that matter in retail.

Megan also works on Be Inspired, Retail Week’s events and content programme that promotes inclusivity across the sector.

In 2018 she was named among The Drum’s 50 Under 30 Top Women in Digital, and in 2016 she was recognised with the Silver Rising Star accolade at the British Media Awards.

Andrew Getter, retail go-to-market lead, Scandit

Andrew Getter is the retail go-to-market lead at Scandit, a leading provider of mobile computer vision technology.  

In his role of Scandit retail go-to-market lead for EMEA, Andrew works closely with retailers to help them derive maximum business value from Scandit’s technology. He also works closely with Scandit’s product development team. 

With nearly 20 years of experience, Andrew has spent his entire career in customer-facing roles including new business development, account management, product management. He has also been a business owner and employer. 

For the last 10 years, Andrew has specialised in retail technology, particularly software/SaaS.