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My guest this week is Duncan Smith. Duncan is a seasoned media and communications strategist with over two decades of experience in media planning, buying, and agency leadership roles across London, Europe, and New York. Throughout his career, he has led top-tier agencies, spearheading the launch of connection planning departments, managing global multinational clients, and leading winning pitches for well over $4 billion in new business. Duncan's strategic vision, media expertise, and ability to construct communication strategies that deliver against business objectives have been instrumental in rebuilding agencies from the ground up. Currently, he is the Global Chief Product Officer at Journey Further, one of the most admired and culture-focused performance brand agencies in the world.
Welcome to The Voice of Retail. I'm your host Michael LeBlanc. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.My guest on this Encore episode from the summer of 2023 is Rob Smith, veteran retailer and now the CEO and Founder of The Phluid Project, GET Phluid, and The Phluid Phoundation; he has created a brand, combining his profession with his passion and a commitment to social justice. Rob and I first met when he was a guest on the Remarkable Retail podcast during the pandemic; we recently almost literally ran into each other at a conference in Toronto on the show floor, so an excellent opportunity to catch up on The Phluid Project and the retail environment in general from his vantage point. About RobRob Smith, the CEO and Founder of The Phluid Project, GET Phluid and The Phluid Phoundation, has created a brand, combining his profession, which is retail, along with his passion, a commitment to social justice. After graduating from Michigan State University, Rob began a long retail career, spanning over 30 years, orchestrating multi-billion dollar businesses through merchandising, e-commerce, marketing, product development and supply chain management. He worked his way through Macys for over two decades, working within four divisions and finishing with his final position as GMM/EVP Macys Corporate in product merchandising. Gaining new experiences, Rob became GMM/EVP at Victoria's Secret and the Children's Global Chief Product Officer for Nike, Levi's Jordan, Hurley, and Converse with Haddad Brands. Rob leads the CSR committee as a Board of Director for Steve Madden and is an Executive in Residence with Wunderkind and The Fashioneering Lab. He's the former Board Chair for The Hetrick-Martin Institute and also served on the board of directors for Athlete Ally. Rob lives in NYC with his husband, Rod Grozier, and his dog, Jackson. About MichaelMichael is the president and founder of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc, a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and media entrepreneur. He has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. He has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels, most recently on the main stage in Toronto at Retail Council of Canada's Retail Secure conference with leaders from The Gap and Kroger talking about violence in retail stores, keynotes on the state & future of retail in Orlando and Halifax, and at the 2023 Canadian GroceryConnex conference, hosting the CEOs of Walmart Canada, Longo's and Save-On-Foods Canada. Michael brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, Pandora Jewellery, The Shopping Channel and Retail Council of Canada to his advisory, speaking and media practice.Michael also produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including the award-winning No.1 independent retail industry podcast in North America, Remarkable Retail, Canada's top retail industry podcast; the Voice of Retail; Canada's top food industry and the top Canadian-produced management independent podcasts in the country, The Food Professor, with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. Rethink Retail has recognized Michael as one of the top global retail influencers for the fourth year in a row, Coresight Research has named Michael a Retail AI Influencer, and you can tune into Michael's cooking show, Last Request BBQ, on YouTube, Instagram, X and yes, TikTok.Available for keynote presentations helping retailers, brands and retail industry insiders explaining the current state of the retail industry in Canada and the U.S., and the future of retail.
Welcome to The Voice of Retail. I'm your host Michael LeBlanc. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.My guest on this episode is Rob Smith, veteran retailer and now the CEO and Founder of The Phluid Project, GET Phluid, and The Phluid Phoundation; he has created a brand, combining his profession with his passion and a commitment to social justice. Rob and I first met when he was a guest on the Remarkable Retail podcast during the pandemic; we recently almost literally ran into each other at the Collision tech conference in Toronto on the show floor, so an excellent opportunity to catch up on The Phluid Project and the retail environment in general from his vantage point. About RobRob Smith, the CEO and Founder of The Phluid Project, GET Phluid and The Phluid Phoundation, has created a brand, combining his profession, which is retail, along with his passion, a commitment to social justice. After graduating from Michigan State University, Rob began a long retail career, spanning over 30 years, orchestrating multi-billion dollar businesses through merchandising, e-commerce, marketing, product development and supply chain management. He worked his way through Macys for over two decades, working within four divisions and finishing with his final position as GMM/EVP Macys Corporate in product merchandising. Gaining new experiences, Rob became GMM/EVP at Victoria's Secret and the Children's Global Chief Product Officer for Nike, Levi's Jordan, Hurley, and Converse with Haddad Brands. Rob leads the CSR committee as a Board of Director for Steve Madden and is an Executive in Residence with Wunderkind and The Fashioneering Lab. He's the former Board Chair for The Hetrick-Martin Institute and also served on the board of directors for Athlete Ally. Rob lives in NYC with his husband, Rod Grozier, and his dog, Jackson. About MichaelMichael is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc. and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada and the Bank of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, Today's Shopping Choice and Pandora Jewellery. Michael has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. He has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions with C-level executives and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels. ReThink Retail has added Michael to their prestigious Top Global Retail Influencers list for 2023 for the third year in a row. Michael is also the president of Maven Media, producing a network of leading trade podcasts, including Canada's top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail. He produces and co-hosts Remarkable Retail with best-selling author Steve Dennis, now ranked one of the top retail podcasts in the world. Based in San Francisco, Global eCommerce Leaders podcast explores global cross-border issues and opportunities for eCommerce brands and retailers. Last but not least, Michael is the producer and host of the "Last Request Barbeque" channel on YouTube, where he cooks meals to die for - and collaborates with top brands as a food and product influencer across North America.
Jess is joined by Sky's Global Chief Product Officer to talk about designing the company's new TV, Sky Glass. Plus she heads to Leitrim to hear about co-working and connectivity in the county.
Programmatic advertising allows tech companies and marketers to reach customers in new ways, quickly, and at scale. And without a doubt, it's become one of the most indispensable tools to target the right audience.But, at the end of the day, we need to understand that consumers come first, which is why we should be driven to do what's best for them.In this episode of Infutor's Identity Revolution podcast, our host Cory Davis welcomes Katherine Strieder, the Global Chief Product Officer at MiQ, a programmatic media partner for marketers and agencies. They talk about the power of programmatic advertising, how MiQ helps their clients stand out in a saturated market, and the biggest changes in AdTech over the years.
Rob Smith, CEO & Founder, The Phluid Project / GET Phluid / The Phluid Foundation has created a brand, combining his retail profession with his passion: a commitment to social justice. After graduating from Michigan State University, Rob began a thirty-year retail career orchestrating multi-billion dollar businesses through merchandising, e-commerce, marketing, product development, and supply chain management. He worked his way through Macy's for over two decades, working within four divisions and finishing with his final position as GMM/EVP Macy's Corporate in product merchandising. Gaining new experiences, Rob became GMM/EVP at Victoria's Secret direct. He was the Children's Global Chief Product Officer for Nike, Levi's Jordan, Hurley, and Converse with Haddad Brands. Rob mentors numerous fashion brands and designers, leads the CSR committee as a member of Steve Madden Ltd's Board of Directors, and raises critical funds for LGBTQIA+ organizations. Today, Rob leads and manages The Phluid Project, a leader in gender-free fashion. Phluid, joining a global movement of freedom, authenticity, and self-expression, leads with values, a powerful community, and a fearlessness to challenge the status quo. Phluid thoughtfully expands into new spaces where they can offer insight, education, and impact, including GET Phluid (gender-expansive training) and The Phluid Phoundation, a nonprofit supporting the most at-risk members of the LGBTQIA+ community (trans women of color and homeless queer youth). Rob lives in NYC with his husband, Rod Grozier, and his dog, Jackson. _______Like what you hear? Let us know! Subscribe and share—we really appreciate it.Have ideas or comments for us? Email us at hatchcast@msu.edu. For behind-the-scenes content, check us out on Facebook and Instagram. Hatchcast is made possible by the Burgess Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation at Michigan State University in collaboration with the MSU Innovation Center, the MSU Entrepreneurship Association, & MSU Women in Entrepreneurship.Original Music & Sound Design by Kakia Gkoudina and Karina Stankowski Engineered & Edited by Will RowanThe Hatchcast is co-hosted and produced by Gabe Hales, Gabe Berke, Diego Fernandez, Danielle Tice, Karina Stankowski, Charlotte Bachelor, Will Rowan, & Aaryn Richard.
Rob Smith, the CEO and Founder of The Phluid Project, has created a brand, combining his profession, which is retail, along with his passion, a commitment to social justice. After graduating from Michigan State University, Rob began a long retail career, spanning over 30 years, orchestrating multi-billion dollar businesses through merchandising, e-commerce, marketing, product development and supply chain management. He worked his way through Macys for over two decades, working within four divisions and finishing with his final position as GMM/EVP Macys Corporate in product merchandising. Gaining new experiences, Rob became GMM/EVP at Victoria's Secret direct. He was the Children's Global Chief Product Officer for Nike, Levi's Jordan, Hurley, and Converse with Haddad Brands. Rob mentors numerous fashion brands and designers, leads the CSR committee as a Board of Director for Steve Madden Ltd., and raises critical funds for LGBTQIA+ organizations. He's the former Board Chair for The Hetrick-Martin Institute, which empowers, educates and advocates on behalf of LGBTQIA+ youth around the world and has also served on the board of directors for Athlete Ally, eliminating homophobia and transphobia in sports. Today, Rob leads and mange's The Project Project, a leader in gender-free fashion. Phluid, joining a global movement of freedom, authenticity and self-expression, leads with values, a powerful community and a fearlessness to challenge the status quo. Phluid thoughtfully expands into new spaces where they can offer insight, education and impact. Rob lives in NYC with his husband, Rod Grozier, and his dog, Jackson. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/toby-usnik/support
This week our guest is Rob Smith, CEO & Founder of The Phluid Project and Get Phluid. After many years as a senior executive working with Macy's, Victoria's Secret, Levi's and Nike, Rob followed his passion for social justice and launched The Phluid Project, a rapidly growing non-binary, gender express fashion brand that is grounded in community and build on activism.In this deeply personal and inspiring episode, we explore the challenges of being your authentic self in the corporate world and how to best merge passion and purpose in the work we do. And be ready to take plenty of notes as we learn how Rob and team boot-strapped their start up from an original store in Manhattan just 4 years ago to product partnerships with Sephora, Target and Nordstrom.Then we wrap up the episode with our weekly segment “Remarkable or Forgettable?” where we give our hot takes on retail headlines, and deem them wow-worthy, best ignored or somewhere in between. This week's big stories include reflections on how Wall St. retail analysts keep getting it so very wrong, what to take away from Nordstrom and Best Buy's earnings, Saks' marketplace dreams, big private brand pushes from Target and Bed, Bath & Beyond and Google's search (heh, heh) for a physical retail strategy.“If you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”―David BowieRob Smith, the CEO and Founder of The Phluid Project, has created a brand, combining his profession, which is retail, along with his passion, a commitment to social justice.After graduating from Michigan State University, Rob began a long retail career, spanning over 30 years, orchestrating multi-billion dollar businesses through merchandising, e-commerce, marketing, product development and supply chain management. He worked his way through Macys for over two decades, working within four divisions and finishing with his final position as GMM/EVP Macys Corporate in product merchandising. Gaining new experiences, Rob became GMM/EVP at Victoria’s Secret direct. He was the Children’s Global Chief Product Officer for Nike, Levi’s Jordan, Hurley, and Converse with Haddad Brands.Rob mentors numerous fashion brands and designers, leads the CSR committee as a Board of Director for Steve Madden Ltd., and raises critical funds for LGBTQIA+ organizations. He’s the former Board Chair for The Hetrick-Martin Institute, which empowers, educates and advocates on behalf of LGBTQIA+ youth around the world and has also served on the board of directors for Athlete Ally, eliminating homophobia and transphobia in sports. Today, Rob leads and mange’s The Project Project, a leader in gender-free fashion. Phluid, joining a global movement of freedom, authenticity and self-expression, leads with values, a powerful community and a fearlessness to challenge the status quo. Phluid thoughtfully expands into new spaces where they can offer insight, education and impact. Rob lives in NYC with his husband, Rod Grozier, and his dog, JacksonSteve Dennis is an advisor, keynote speaker and author on strategic growth and business innovation. You can learn more about Steve on his website. The expanded and revised edition of his bestselling book Remarkable Retail: How To Win & Keep Customers in the Age of Disruption is now available at Amazon or just about anywhere else books are sold. Steve regularly shares his insights in his role as a Forbes senior contributor and on Twitter and LinkedIn. You can also check out his speaker "sizzle" reel here.Michael LeBlanc is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience, and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. Michael is the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts including Canada’s top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail, plus Global E-Commerce Tech Talks and The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. You can learn more about Michael here or on LinkedIn.
Jon and Rob discuss how to align your values to your business's values. Rob Smith, the CEO, and Founder of The Phluid Project has created a space, combining his profession with his passion. After graduating from Michigan State University, Rob began a long retail career, spanning over 30 years, orchestrating multi-million dollar businesses through merchandising, e-commerce, marketing, product development, and supply chain management. He worked his way through Macy's for over two decades, working within four divisions and finishing with his final position as GMM/EVP Macys Corporate in product merchandising. Gaining new experiences, Rob became GMM/EVP at Victoriaʼs Secret direct. He was the Childrenʼs Global Chief Product Officer for Nike, Leviʼs Jordan, Hurley, and Converse with Haddad Brands. Rob mentors numerous fashion brands and serves on the Board of Directors for Steve Madden Ltd., leading the newly created CSR committee. Heʼs the former Board Chair for The Hetrick-Martin Institute, which empowers, educates, and advocates on behalf of LGBTQA+ youth around the world and has also served on the board of directors for Athlete Ally. Today, Rob leads and mangeʼs The Project Project. A leader in the Gender-Free fashion movement. Phluid, joining a global movement of freedom of authenticity and self-expression, leads with values, a powerful community, and a fearlessness to challenge the status quo. Phluid thoughtfully expands into new spaces where they can offer insight, education, and impact. Rob lives in NYC with his husband, Rod Grozier, and his dog, Jackson. Connect with Jon Dwoskin: Twitter: @jdwoskin Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.dwoskin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejondwoskinexperience/ Website: https://jondwoskin.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondwoskin/ Email: jon@jondwoskin.com Get Jon’s Book: The Think Big Movement: Grow your business big. Very Big!
Carey O'Connor Kolaja, Chief Executive Officer, AU10TIX AU10TIX specializes in automated identity intelligence and cyber fraud prevention. CEO Carey O'Connor Kolaja was previously Global Chief Product Officer with Citi FinTech and VP, Global Consumer Products at PayPal. She explained to Robin Amlôt of IBS Intelligence how the digital identity landscape is changing and warns about the emerging vulnerabilities for both businesses and individuals.
Rob Smith, the CEO and Founder of The Phluid Project, has created a space, combining his profession with his passion. After graduating from Michigan State University, Rob began a long retail career, spanning over 30 years, orchestrating multi-billion dollar businesses through merchandising, e-commerce, marketing, product development and supply chain management. He worked his way through Macys for over two decades, working within four divisions and finishing with his final position as GMM/EVP Macys Corporate in product merchandising. Gaining new experiences, Rob became GMM/EVP at Victoriaʼs Secret direct. He was the Childrenʼs Global Chief Product Officer for Nike, Leviʼs Jordan, Hurley, and Converse with Haddad Brands. Rob mentors numerous fashion brands and serves on the Board of Directors for Steve Madden Ltd., leading the newly created CSR committee. Heʼs the former Board Chair for The Hetrick-Martin Institute, which empowers, educates and advocates on behalf of LGBTQA+ youth around the world and has also served on the board of directors for Athlete Ally. Today, Rob leads and mangeʼs The Project Project. A leader in the Gender-Free fashion movement. Phluid, joining a global movement of freedom of authenticity and self-expression, leads with values, a powerful community and a fearlessness to challenge the status quo. Phluid thoughtfully expands into new spaces where they can offer insight, education and impact. Rob lives in NYC with his husband, Rod Grozier, and his dog, Jackson. Connect with Rob Smith Website: https://thephluidproject.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/robsmithnyc LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robsmith-thephluidproject/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thephluidproject/ Connect with Jon Dwoskin Website: http://jondwoskin.com/ Twitter: @jdwoskin Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.dwoskin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Thejondwoskinexperience/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondwoskin/ Email: jon@jondwoskin.com
Rob Smith, the CEO and Founder of The Phluid Project, has created a space, combining his profession with his passion. After graduating from Michigan State University, Rob began a long retail career, spanning over 30 years, orchestrating multi-billion dollar businesses through merchandising, e-commerce, marketing, product development and supply chain management. He worked his way through Macys for over two decades, working within four divisions and finishing with his final position as GMM/EVP Macys Corporate in product merchandising. Gaining new experiences, Rob became GMM/EVP at Victoria’s Secret direct. He was the Children’s Global Chief Product Officer for Nike, Levi’s Jordan, Hurley, and Converse with Haddad Brands. Rob mentors numerous fashion brands and serves on the Board of Directors for Steve Madden Ltd., leading the newly created CSR committee. He’s the former Board Chair for The Hetrick-Martin Institute, which empowers, educates and advocates on behalf of LGBTQA+ youth around the world and has also served on the board of directors for Athlete Ally. Today, Rob leads and mange’s The Project Project. A leader in the Gender-Free fashion movement. Phluid, joining a global movement of freedom of authenticity and self-expression, leads with values, a powerful community and a fearlessness to challenge the status quo. Phluid thoughtfully expands into new spaces where they can offer insight, education and impact. Rob lives in NYC with his husband, Rod Grozier, and his dog, Jackson. Here’s what we discussed in today’s episode: How Burning Man & travel helped Rob find himself What is The Phluid Project? Creating inclusive community through clothing The changing world and making space for those who are different Connect with Rob Website: www.getphluid.com and www.thephluidproject.com Instagram: @robgarrettsmith and @thephluidproject
There's a decent chance that when you walk into a retailer in a developed country, and you hear music or some sort of in-store audio playing, that's Mood Media. The company is in more than half a million subscriber locations in a 100-plus countries delivering in-store media solutions. While that started with music, it was natural as digital signage technology matured to add on visual messaging. Now the company has launched something called Mood Harmony, a new platform that grew out of a signage CMS and offers a single user experience to do sound, visuals, social media and even scent marketing off of one platform. I had a great chat with Trey Courtney, the Global Chief Product Officer for Mood Media, to get the back-story on the company, why it developed Harmony, and how retailers are defining and using technology designed to deliver on customer experience. Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS
Trey is the Global Chief Product Officer for Mood Media, a leading in-store media specialist that uses a mix of music, visual and mobile solutions to help its clients communicate with customers and drive incremental sales in retail establishments. Trey brings 12+ years experience in technology development and professional services at both large and small companies. Prior to Mood Media, Trey worked in a variety of product management and professional service roles at companies like Accenture and eBay.
Our GuestTrey is the Chief Product Officer for Mood, a leading in-store media specialist that uses a mix of music, visual and mobile solutions to help its clients communicate with customers and drive incremental sales in retail establishments. Trey brings 12+ years experience in technology development and professional services at both large and small companies. Prior to Mood Media, Trey worked in a variety of product management and professional service roles at companies like Accenture and eBay.Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest:Trey is most passionate about solving the retail challenge today with technology. This entails figuring out how to engage with consumers in a meaningful way – how you do that in the most efficient way, how you create that connection, and how you use technology, most specifically mobile technology.. When he was a kid, Trey wanted to be a National Geographic journalist and go take pictures around the world and write stories. He realized when he was in college that this may not be able to get him money, so he got a degree in Finance. He started his career at Accenture where he got to learn software development process to solve business problems. Trey joined Mood Media as a consultant to help with device strategies but ultimately joined full time as a technical product manager. They take content -- whether its video or audio-- curate it and deliver it to lots of different systems and his role was to figure out the platform component of it all. In the last couple of years, he focused more on being on the shadows and internally-facing to support what’s in the market and take ownership of the product. As a kid, looking back, it was all about telling stories for Trey. He loved to write and take pictures and ultimately, that is telling stories and he shares that it’s the same now in the media company; it is still just about trying to tell stories. But what gets him excited is using all these technologies to create that story, that experience.Mood is the world’s largest in store media solutions company whose goal is to create greater emotional connections between the brands and the consumers. They do this by using sight (video digital signage), sound (audio, music), scent, and social and mobile components. Mood had recently done a visually stimulating study entitled “The State of Brick and Mortar in 2017” which embodies a lot of the company’s learnings. What interested him most is the data showing that people want assistants so we need to augment technology so that associates will be provided with better tools. Trey’s biggest learning lessons include not looking outward as much as they needed to which resulted to development of products which were simply wrong. They learned the hard way that if they wanted to develop something new, they have to have conversations with consumers.Network connectivity was also one of the bigger challenges that they had to overcome and speed, supporting different devices and platforms are things which they are trying to hone in on.
Bionic CEO David Kidder sits down with Carey Kolaja, the Global Chief Product Officer of Citi Fintech, to discuss how this juggernaut of bank is changing the way it works and building disruptive fintech solutions like a startup. Kidder and Kolaja will delve into not just what Citi Fintech is focused on but how they built a program for growth that combines the Lean Startup methodology with growth boards, which manage the investment and support of new ideas so they aren't prematurely killed or (equally problematic) prematurely scaled.