Retail Lunch 22 – The perfect storm

Lauren Somers is a UK Chartered Trade Mark and Designs Attorney. She helps businesses from multinationals to start-ups to identify, protect and enforce their intellectual property rights. Lauren is co-chair of the pro-manchester Retail & E-commence committee and has particular experience and expertise advising retailers.

David is currently Centre Director at Manchester Arndale, a position he has held for 10 years. He is also Chair of CityCo, the management company that represents over 1000 city centre businesses.

His career started in London, working for Bass and involved running bars, hotels and restaurants in the City of London before a move into the aviation sector with BAA at Gatwick, and as part of the development team for Heathrow’s Terminal 5.

The move North was brought about by taking up the position of Head of Commercial Development at Manchester Airports Group, which was responsible from all income from retail and car parks right through to the refuelling of aircraft.

The shopping centre sector move came in 2006 taking up the role of General Manager with Lend Lease for the redevelopment of the Golden Square shopping centre in Warrington, before moving down the M56 to Manchester Arndale.

Amna is a Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University Business School. Amna contributes to the academic discipline of consumer behaviour and retailing, she teaches on undergraduate, postgraduate and commercial retail apprenticeship programs, and regularly publishes her work in leading academic journals.

Amna is an invited keynote speaker at international conferences and a panellist for corporate events.  She  conveys complex idea with simplicity that engage and inspire audiences. She uses her unique consumer and retailing knowledge to contribute to international, national and regional media outlets, and has provided comment for BBC, ITV, Channel 5, BBC Radio and The Conversation. She has featured on Channel 5 retailing documentaries on Supermarkets and leading retail brands, such as, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Aldi, Lidl, Marks and Spencer. She present her insights on high-street and retailing issues through blog-posts and podcasts. She is an invited keynote speaker.

Linked in – https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-amna-k-6b639b1b/

Danny Simpson is the CEO of MID Communications & Founder of the MID Group, the largest multi award winning O2 Franchise in the Northwest, providing both B2B and B2C services across 16 retail stores throughout the Northwest and a business centre based in Rochdale.

Danny started his career back when GPRS was the only form of mobile internet and he also experienced the launch and impact of both 3G and 4G. He has also witnessed the release of the first ever iPhone in the telco marketplace along with many other tech gadgets like wearables, smart tech, innovative apps and especially tablets. Danny has seen how each of these have cannibalised the market in laptops to how the digital landscape has changed and works in our world as it is today.

He has the queens award for voluntary service, is a trustee for Hits Radio Cash for Kids Manchester, Non-Exec & Trustee for Cash For Kids UK, Non-Exec Director & Trustee for Kingfisher Learning Trust.

Personal Values –

1. Be kind and courteous
2. Have good strong manors, they cost nothing.
3. Work Hard / Work Ethic

Professional Values

1. Pride – Have it and show it.
2. Passion – Have it and show it
3. Persistence – if its worth doing do it

Jennifer is a Partner with considerable experience and expertise, encompassing both contentious and non-contentious work, spanning the lifetime of the employment relationship. With extensive advocacy experience in the Tribunals, Jennifer has developed a strong reputation as a litigator and tactician.

Jennifer is listed in the Legal 500 as a “Recommended Lawyer” and a “Next Generation Partner”. The publication has described Jennifer as “very thorough and totally committed to her clients” and as a “name to note”. Jennifer has particular expertise in the recruitment sector, as well as professional services industry and hospitality, retail and tech sectors.

Clients recognise Jennifer’s excellent legal skillset and commitment to them and consistently return to her for advice. Jennifer’s personal approach, commercial awareness and excellent client care skills have previously resulted in awards, including Jennifer winning the Business Insider Lawyer of the Year.

As well as being a Partner at Forbes, Jennifer is a Trustee of the Forbes Foundation charity and is a director of pro-manchester.

Martin is Slalom’s Retail lead in Manchester, with 20+ years experience in management consultancy, strategy, business transformation and audit across a number of sectors. Previously he was Strategy Director at British Cycling.

Passionate about Retail (and Sport!), he is currently working with a number of North West based Retailers where he and the Slalom team are combining expertise founded in data, analytics and IT transformation to help businesses unlock value.

Martin’s key focus is client service; his purpose is to help identify and deliver opportunities to help Retail clients better engage with customers and suppliers. He believes in empowering the employees of an organisation to enable growth and make a positive impact on the communities we live and work in

Vaughan Allen is the Chief Exec of CityCo, the city centre management company for Manchester, England.

CityCo is a membership organization, representing over a thousand businesses across the property, retail, hospitality and the cultural sectors. It also runs the city’s only Business Improvement District which focuses on delivering major events and marketing campaigns for the city.

The company supports its members operationally and with frequent advice. In the past few years it has run numerous campaigns around such issues as rough sleeping and homelessness, terrorism, crime and the future of the city centre. Following city centre riots in 2011, the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017 and now the covid-19 lockdown, it offers expertise in resilience and building back better after traumatic events.

Before running CityCo, Vaughan was a journalist and leader in the cultural field.

Caroline Jackson is the owner and manager of the LWF Group Ltd, an e-commerce company with various e-commerce verticals, including Little Women the last remaining retailer globally selling a triple A cup bra. With a background as a buyer for various blue chip companies over the last 40 years such as Top Shop (as was) Debenhams, Hornes Menswear, and with roles as a procurement analyst in several sectors, she has a wealth of experience in, and a passion for, retail in all of its many guises.

Sarah was appointed CEO of Retail in March 2020. With over 25 years of retail and brand experience on the UK high street, Sarah started her career on the shop floor. With her great passion for product, she quickly developed her skills in buying and has held senior buying roles at both River Island and Miss Selfridge before joining Oasis. Having spent 18 years at Oasis she has been fundamental in shaping the unique customer and product proposition, most recently as Managing Director.

Key strengths

• Retail
• Design and product development
• Sourcing
• Trading
• Customer engagement

Adam is the CIO at fashion high street brand River Island, with 20+ years IT experience across a number of sectors. Adam has recently moved on from CIO at N Brown & prior to that had an extensive & successful career at AO.com

Adam’s a strong believer that innovation is never hampered by a lack of ideas, but rather a lack of detecting the significance and substance of ideas that already exist, therefore he is driven to leverage technology in smart and bold ways to benefit customers.