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FUTURE LEADERS

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Retail Week’s Future Leaders programme inspires and support retail’s young talent, whoever they are, whatever their background. Our mission is to foster a diverse leadership future by equipping young people with the confidence, creativity and skills to thrive in retail.

This is why we have brought together a specific set of sessions over the two days of LIVE aimed at our Future Leaders cohort. Culminating in the Future Leaders takeover of the People and Wellbeing Zone in the afternoon of Day 2, this is the content that will advise and inspire future leaders.

Day One

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09:00
  1. Main Stage
    5 mins
    • Main Stage
    Leaders from Retail Week and The Grocer will welcome you to LIVE 2024
09:05
  1. Main Stage
    20 mins
    • Main Stage
    • Future Leaders

    From AI and robotics, to sustainable packaging and wind power, Amazon’s customer obsession is the driving force behind innovation that makes customers’ lives easier, supports employees, and has a positive impact in communities across the UK.

09:25
  1. Main Stage
    20 mins
    • Main Stage
    In the run-up to the general election, we bring to the stage retail authority, Andy Higginson, chair of JD Sports and the BRC, to talk to retail leadership specialist, Sally Elliott, Global Retail Practice leader at Spencer Stuart, about the major issues that are impacting the sector.
09:45
  1. Main Stage
    30 mins
    • Main Stage
    There are more than 15m women in the UK who are currently in menopause and yet their needs are overlooked and underserved.
    Sponsored by GenM
10:35
  1. People & Wellbeing Stage
    20 mins
    • People & Wellbeing
    • Future Leaders
    Diversity of thought positively impacts the success of a business. Employers want to hire the best person for the job, and candidates want to get the job on merit. How can you specifically recruit people from diverse backgrounds without straying into a territory where you're hiring to fill quotas?
11:00
  1. Tech & Digital Stage
    30 mins
    • Tech & Digital
    • Future Leaders
    Sustainable growth continues to hinge on productivity. But with an unpredictable cost base, talent retention challenges, and constrained budgets, improving productivity can seem like an uphill struggle. This session explores the current pinch points in productivity, and where progress is being made, and how to identify gaps where brands can drive productivity harder.
    Sponsored by Zebra
11:35
  1. Tech & Digital Stage
    25 mins
    • Tech & Digital
    • Future Leaders
    From source to store AI’s impact can’t be ignored. But are you missing out on one of its biggest use cases?
    Sponsored by Upp
12:05
  1. Main Stage
    25 mins
    • Main Stage
    • Future Leaders
    It's time to stop separating the creatives. Everyone can access the brain's right hemisphere and it's essential in all walks of work life - be it problem solving, strategic thinking, business transformation or inspiring your teams.
13:30
  1. Main Stage
    25 mins
    • Main Stage
    • Future Leaders
    Social impact helps create lasting relationships within the communities your brand serves
15:15
  1. People & Wellbeing Stage
    25 mins
    • People & Wellbeing
    • Future Leaders
    Talent is equally distributed, opportunities are not. Businesses have a societal responsibility to ensure they are doing more to help underprivileged young people find employment and thrive in the workplace. The benefits are far-reaching, for individuals, colleagues, communities and business performance. We discuss strategies, business benefits, success stories, and challenges in focusing on improving socio-economic diversity in organisations.
16:15
  1. Main Stage
    30 mins
    • Main Stage
    Google is at the forefront of the AI revolution and its groundbreaking Gemini language models are driving innovation and shaping the future of retail. Now is the time to not only get on board but get ahead.
    Sponsored by Google
16:45
  1. Main Stage
    20 mins
    • Main Stage
    Why is it important to know what makes you special? And once you know what it is, why should you celebrate it and use it to your advantage?

Day Two

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09:00
  1. Main Stage
    25 mins
    • Main Stage
    • Future Leaders
    Love it or loathe it, the modern-day influencer has changed the retail landscape. Dismissed by some critics as vacuous, self-obsessed, and inauthentic, applauded by others for their ability to build huge and loyal communities with whom they truly resonate.
09:25
  1. Main Stage
    25 mins
    • Main Stage
    • Future Leaders
    Attentions are quickly turned amongst the swipe-ready generations. They want newness, creativity, immediacy, community. But it's also possible to win their hearts and minds and earn their loyalty. Get inside their minds and learn what makes them steadfast, from personalisation to product, from social media to seamless shopping.
09:50
  1. Main Stage
    25 mins
    • Main Stage
    • Future Leaders
    Understanding what younger generations want from a workplace is essential future-proofing. Senior leaders risk subconsciously projecting their view of what a company culture should look like to the point where they become unattractive to work for and irrelevant. From flexibility to purpose, technology to leadership, a business needs to be run with young talent in mind.
10:15
  1. Main Stage
    25 mins
    • Main Stage
    • Future Leaders
    Progressive leadership requires challenging the status quo, setting a vision, and understanding and directing with empathy.
11:00
  1. Tech & Digital Stage
    25 mins
    • Tech & Digital
    • Future Leaders
    Multichannel, then omnichannel, now unified commerce. It might sound like another buzz word, but don't ignore it. This session explores why unified commerce claims to be different. Join us as we unpick how retailers need to bring all aspects of their brand under one umbrella to create a genuinely customer-centric retail proposition.
11:30
  1. People & Wellbeing Stage
    25 mins
    • People & Wellbeing
    • Future Leaders
    Diversity is long proven to drive more creativity, more innovation, happier teams, more sales, and more financially sustainable businesses.
12:00
  1. People & Wellbeing Stage
    25 mins
    • People & Wellbeing
    • Future Leaders
    Done well, they're vital check-ins with your line managers and your direct reports; a way to ensure bosses lead with a light touch; motivating with an awareness of priorities, aligning workloads to a bigger vision, resulting in individuals feeling empowered. Done badly they be a thing of dread and morph into a negative scrutiny of to-do lists and challenges.
12:25
  1. Park Suite 6-7 - invite only
    60 mins
    • Future Leaders
    • Fringe Events - invite only
    Join us for lunch and get to know your ambassador and Future Leaders peers over food.
13:25
  1. People & Wellbeing Stage
    20 mins
    • People & Wellbeing
    • Future Leaders
    Although there is no sure-fire formula for personal success there are certain steps you can take to maximise your potential. Career and life coach Russell Amerasekera, founder of Pearls and Poison, has coached many a high-profile individual including the late Jacqueline Gold, and so knows what it takes to triumph.
13:50
  1. People & Wellbeing Stage
    25 mins
    • People & Wellbeing
    • Future Leaders
    Some retailers and suppliers have made huge progress in terms of diversity & inclusion. But by no means all. In this panel we'll talk to the new generation of women who are breaking the glass ceiling, and to the companies that have supported them, and discuss how further progress can be made.
14:30
  1. Main Stage
    25 mins
    • Main Stage
    From high interest rates to fluctuating prices, the global economy has been in three years of turmoil prompting consumers to judiciously prioritise their spend. But with consumer behaviour so fundamentally altered by this time, what will they want from retailers and brands moving forward?
    Sponsored by Mastercard
14:55
  1. Main Stage
    25 mins
    • Main Stage
    • Future Leaders
    Ever wondered what is keeping our most senior leaders up at night? Want to know what's on their to do list? And what they see being a focus in the future?
15:20
  1. Main Stage
    20 mins
    • Main Stage
    • Future Leaders
    It's the fashion success story that refuses to stand still; range expansions, partnerships, tentative steps towards a multichannel offer, and global ambitions. What's next for the fashion behemoth?
15:40
  1. Main Stage
    5 mins
    • Main Stage
    Leaders from Retail Week and The Grocer will conclude LIVE 2024