Hello everyone,

How do you take a brand that sells in 160+ countries and manufactures its own display panels, and make it culturally relevant in one of the most competitive markets in the world? That’s the challenge Cole Moir has been solving as VP of Brand & Digital Marketing at TCL North America.

Cole joined us to talk the full picture: from assumption mapping and affinity-based audience building, to cultural partnerships with the NFL, Call of Duty, and the International Olympic Committee, to the measurement frameworks that tie it all together.

Enjoy!

In this edition:
1. About the brand
2. About the guest
3. Our episode highlights
4. Where can you watch and listen
5. Next week

Subscribe now

About the brand

TCL is a global leader in consumer electronics for display panels, televisions, home comfort, and mobile devices. Founded in 1981, TCL has manufacturing and R&D facilities around the world and is present in more than 160 countries with its products and services.

The company’s mission is to improve people’s everyday lives through innovative, cutting-edge technology. In North America, TCL has been named the fastest-growing consumer electronics brand by Circana for two consecutive years, and is actively chasing the number-one position in TVs sold in the US.

About the guest

Cole Moir is an accomplished brand and digital marketing executive with 19 years of experience. As VP of Brand & Digital Marketing at TCL North America, he has been leading the brand’s shift from being known for value to being recognized for innovation and quality. With experience across agencies such as Ogilvy, 360i, and Edelman, as well as brand-side roles at Motorola and Samsung, he specializes in bridging culture with strategy and creative, along with data to drive measurable growth.

Cole builds high-performing cross-functional teams, modernizes processes, and delivers results across brand strategy, digital transformation, performance marketing, ecommerce, content, and creative innovation. He holds a BS in Marketing from the University of South Dakota, where he was a three-time All-American swimmer, three-year team captain, and active in student leadership organizations.

Our Episode Highlights

Here are four key takeaways from our conversation:

1. Research before everything:
TCL’s transformation started not with creativity, but with rigorous assumption mapping and social listening. Cole’s team discovered their target audience wasn’t quite who they thought, which forced them to rebuild affinity-based audience segments from scratch. The insight: understanding who actually buys, and why, is the prerequisite for every dollar spent.

2. Culture isn’t a campaign, it’s a context:
Cole’s approach to cultural partnerships goes far beyond logo placement. TCL became the official TV partner of the NFL and the Olympics, not just for awareness, but because those moments are where their core audience already lives. Nielsen data shows families watch between four and a half to five hours of TV daily: culture doesn’t just happen on TV, it happens through TV.

3. The hardest audience to win is also the most loyal:
The Call of Duty partnership unlocked TCL’s entry into the gaming monitor space and revealed something important about gamer psychology. Gamers are notoriously difficult to convert: it takes two to three times the effort to get someone to switch or even consider switching in that space. But once you’ve won them, the loyalty is unmatched.

4. What the backlash against self-checkout and AI reveals:
The retreat from self-checkout shows consumers still want choice and human interaction. The same applies to AI-generated content, which can feel overly polished and impersonal. Growing demand for more human, imperfect experiences is not nostalgia; it’s an important market signal.

Where can you watch and listen

Find the full conversation and valuable insights on our YouTube channel, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. Choose your favorite podcast provider below:

1. YouTube:

2. Spotify:

3. Apple Podcasts

More related episodes on OFFBounds:
🎧Inside Lenovo’s Global Marketing Transformation with CMO Emily Ketchen
🎧How HANRO US Used Streaming Ads and Clienteling to Accelerate Growth
🎧The Marketing Behind Better Ingredients, Better Pizza
🎧Reinventing Tradition: How Selfridges Blends Heritage with Technology

Next Week

On April 28th, we welcome retail veteran Nigel Oddy in a conversation that explores leadership, business transformation, and the turnaround of American Golf. We cover the guest’s journey into retail, the challenge of reshaping the business, key strategic decisions, lessons from leading change, and how discipline and resilience from running influence his leadership style.

Follow us to stay ahead in the retail world; all our social links and podcast platforms are right here.

Hello everyone,

There is a particular kind of discomfort spreading through leadership teams right now, a feeling that the ground has shifted, that something fundamental has changed, but that nobody can quite put their finger on what. Carl Boutet has a name for it, and a book that tries to explain it. He calls it “The Flip”: the moment when technology stopped being a tool that amplified human judgment and started becoming the thing that replaces it.

In this episode, recorded in Montreal, Paula sits down with Carl for a wide-ranging conversation that moves from the evolution of his three books to the four forces reshaping commerce, the rise of AI-driven search, the quiet danger of leaders outsourcing strategic decisions to algorithms, and why the backlash against self-checkout and polished AI content might be telling us something important about what people actually want.

Enjoy!

In this edition:
1. About the guest
2. Our episode highlights
3. Where can you watch and listen
4. Next week

Subscribe now

About the guest

Carl Boutet is a Montreal-based business strategist and executive advisor with over 25 years of experience spanning operational, marketing, and retail leadership roles. As the founder of StudioRx, he advises executives, B2C and B2B solution providers, and ecosystem partners on adapting their strategies to meet customers’ shifting needs and building effective commercial strategies. He holds an MBA from Queen’s University and professional certificates from Stanford, Harvard, and MIT.

Carl serves on the boards of several retailers, global brands, and industry associations, and is the principal advisor for the McGill University Retail Innovation Lab. He teaches in McGill’s Masters in Retail Innovation program and serves as adjunct digital marketing faculty at the Asian Institute of Technology MBA School of Management. Rethink Retail has recognized him as one of the world’s 25 most influential thought leaders.

He is the author of three books: The Great Acceleration (2021), which charted how the pandemic transformed digital commerce; Blindspot (2024), which explored the unforeseen impacts of technology on commerce; and his latest, The Flip, previewed for the first time in this episode, which asks the harder question of what happens when value creation itself changes hands.

Our Episode Highlights

Here are four key takeaways from our conversation:

1. The four forces reshaping commerce:
Carl explains that retail is being transformed by four forces: automation, optimization, contextualization, and immersion. While most companies focus on automation and optimization, the real blind spots are contextualization (personalizing to individuals) and immersion (constant data through connected devices). These two forces may influence consumer decisions more than brands realize.

2. How leaders are handing decisions to algorithms:
Many executives rely on algorithms to make faster decisions under pressure. The risk is not only bad decisions, but that competitors using the same tools are all making the same choices, creating growing sameness in marketing, products, and strategy.

3. Why AI is changing search and discovery:
SEO created clear, if imperfect, rules for visibility. AI-driven search is far less predictable. Brands are experimenting with ways to appear in AI results, such as trusted communities like Reddit, but no real playbook exists yet. Authentic human voices may become the strongest advantage.

4. What the backlash against self-checkout and AI reveals:
The retreat from self-checkout shows consumers still want choice and human interaction. The same applies to AI-generated content, which can feel overly polished and impersonal. Growing demand for more human, imperfect experiences is not nostalgia; it’s an important market signal.

Where can you watch and listen

Find the full conversation and valuable insights on our YouTube channel, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. Choose your favorite podcast provider below:

1. YouTube:

2. Spotify:

3. Apple Podcasts:

More related episodes on OFFBounds:
🎧Training Future Retail Leaders: The Bensadoun School of Retail Management

Next Week

On April 21st, we welcome a marketing leader whose career spans both agencies and global brands, now helping shape the growth of TCL in North America: Cole Moir. This conversation explores how challenger brands can reshape perception, compete with limited budgets, and create relevance in crowded categories.

Follow us to stay ahead in the retail world; all our social links and podcast platforms are right here.

Hello everyone,

What does it take to build one of Europe’s most sophisticated grocery operations, and have almost nobody outside the continent know your name? That’s the quiet paradox of Rohlik Group, a company with impressive numbers, and a business that turned profitable before most of its peers had even figured out unit economics.

Petr Lizner, Head of Strategy at Rohlik Group, joined the studios in New York and brings the expertise behind €1.6 billion in annual revenue across five markets. Rohlik didn’t start with automation, but with the question: What does the best online grocery experience actually look like? And then they built everything, including the software, the warehouse logic, the routing, and even the AI shopping assistant, to deliver that. Efficiency followed experience, not the other way around, ultimately driving profitability, and we’ll learn all about it.

Enjoy!

In this edition:
1. About the brand
2. About the guest
3. Our episode highlights
4. Where can you watch and listen
5. Next week

Subscribe now

About the brand

Rohlik Group is a European technology leader in e-grocery, operating across the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Romania under locally adapted brand names, Rohlík, Knusper, Gurkerl, and others. Each name is rooted in the local culture; each operation is powered by the same proprietary technology stack built entirely in-house.

With over 25,000 SKUs, seven temperature zones, on-site bakeries, and partnerships with local butchers and specialty producers, Rohlik is not a quick commerce play. It’s a full weekly shop, delivered to your door in 60 minutes or within a 15-minute same-day slot, at prices that match brick-and-mortar competitors. The group fulfills approximately 70,000 orders daily across its markets. And through its tech arm Veloq, Rohlik is now offering its modular platform, WMS, routing, last-mile, and automation integration to other retailers looking to compete online.

About the guest

Petr Lizner moved into his role in January 2025 after nearly three years leading the group's FP&A function across five countries and reporting directly to the CFO. In that time, he was a central figure in the Brinkmeister acquisition and a €170 million fundraise, two of the most consequential moments in the company's recent history.

Before joining Rohlik, he spent time at PwC as a strategy and operations consultant across Central and Eastern Europe, and at PepsiCo as a financial analyst. He also, perhaps less predictably, spent four summers as a professional skipper, captaining sailing vessels up to 60 feet across Greece, Croatia, and Gibraltar. He was also a guest lecturer in Growth Strategies at Prague University of Economics & Business.

Our Episode Highlights

Here are four key takeaways from our conversation:

1. The proposition drives growth, not the other way around
Rohlik built its growth by prioritizing customer experience first, with efficiency and profitability following. In the Czech Republic, this approach helped transform a low-penetration market into one of Europe’s most advanced online grocery markets. The same strategy revived its German acquisition, Brinkmeister (now Knusper), doubling growth by upgrading the proposition rather than the market.

2. Automation is a tool, not a strategy
Rohlik doesn’t treat automation as the goal. Instead, it prioritizes customer experience, even when that means operational complexity. Its real advantage lies in proprietary software that optimizes operations at scale. Automation is applied selectively, depending on market conditions, reinforcing that efficiency alone doesn’t drive growth.

3. Before picking a vendor, understand your whole business
Retailers often buy isolated solutions without a clear strategy. Rohlik’s approach emphasizes understanding the full operation, from assortment to last mile, before investing. Through Veloq, it offers modular tools and operational support, tailored to each retailer’s needs rather than a one-size-fits-all model.

4. AI is already rewriting the P&L for retailers willing to move
Rohlik is already leveraging AI through tools like Maya, streamlining shopping and personalization. More importantly, AI is reshaping cost structures by automating key functions. Retailers can either pass these savings to customers or capture them as margin, but early adopters will have a decisive advantage.

Where can you watch and listen

Find the full conversation and valuable insights on our YouTube channel, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. Choose your favorite podcast provider below:

1. YouTube:

2. Spotify:

3. Apple Podcasts:

More related episodes on OFFBounds:
🎧How Co-op is Redefining Grocery Retail Through Quick Commerce
🎧How DingDong Fresh Is Reinventing Grocery Retail with AI at the Core

Next Week

On April 14th, we welcome back someone who is always adding great knowledge here on the show: Carl Boutet! The Retail Author of “The Flip” in this conversation explores how commerce is shifting from technology as a tool to algorithms as a core driver of value creation, raising important questions about what is gained and lost in the process. From the rise of automation and hyper-personalization to the subtle risks of over-optimization and sameness, it offers a thought-provoking look at how retail is evolving.

Follow us to stay ahead in the retail world; all our social links and podcast platforms are right here.

Hello everyone,

There’s a version of loyalty that most retailers know: a sign-up discount, an email list, a points balance that quietly expires. And then there’s what Loblaw has built, a program so embedded in the everyday lives of millions of Canadians that adult members carry it in their pocket every time they buy groceries, fill a prescription, or pick up a new outfit.

That’s not the first time Loblaw has been on the show, and in this second conversation, it takes you inside what it actually means to run a program at that scale: the systems, the data, the moments of product intuition, and the philosophy behind it all. From the size of the program to Noah’s “honor” to provide value for Canadians, we understand why loyalty is Loblaw’s “red thread that joins everything”.

Enjoy!

In this edition:
1. About the brand
2. About the guest
3. Our episode highlights
4. Where can you watch and listen
5. Next week

Subscribe now

About the brand

Loblaw Companies Limited is Canada’s largest retailer, with over 2,500 stores spanning grocery, pharmacy, and apparel nationwide. Its portfolio includes some of Canada’s most recognized retail banners, alongside financial services, and Advance, its retail media arm.

At the center of it all is PC Optimum, Canada’s biggest loyalty program, with 16 million members and a presence across every vertical in the Loblaw ecosystem. PC Optimum members earn points on everyday purchases, from groceries to prescriptions, and redeem them across beauty, grocery, and more. The program operates with no annual fees and is built around a simple, honest promise: the more you shop for what you need, the more you save.

About the guest

Noah Goldberg is the Vice President and General Manager of Digital Loyalty at Loblaw Companies Limited, the executive behind the day-to-day strategy and product direction of PC Optimum. With a career spanning eCommerce, digital marketing, and loyalty across brands including Psycho Bunny, Joe Fresh, Mackage, and Soia & Kyo, Noah brings a rare mix of operator instinct and digital fluency to one of the most complex loyalty programs in North America.

“We are providing value for some of the most basic human needs, food, shelter, clothing, and the ability to do that for Canadians is an honor.”

He joined Loblaw in part because of the loyalty program itself, drawn by the sheer scale of customer data and the impact the program makes on the lives of ordinary Canadians. A Montreal native, holder of a BA in Political Science from Concordia University, and self-described traditionalist when it comes to points, Noah leads a team of 30 directly and shapes strategy for over 100 people powering the PC Optimum digital experience.

Our Episode Highlights

Here are four key takeaways from our conversation:

1. The single habit that unlocks the full value of PC Optimum: Opening the app and the mobile wallet are not the same thing. Noah tells the story of a friend who had been scanning her wallet for years, convinced she was using PC Optimum correctly — until he watched her do it and realized she had never once loaded her offers. A month after showing her the right way, she earned 30,000 points on a single shop. It’s a small behavioral shift with enormous impact, and it explains why digital engagement has been Noah’s top priority since day one.

2. How gamification went from a spin-the-wheel moment to a vendor-sponsored media channel: What started as a simple in-app game, spin the wheel, win a prize, has evolved into a full loyalty and retail media feature. Vendors now sponsor games inside the PC Optimum app to launch new products or bring their brand in front of millions of engaged Canadians. Noah describes the goal as finding a place between “not the New York Times” and something people genuinely come back to just to play.

3. Swap Canadian: a feature built in a week: When tariffs hit and Canadians wanted to buy Canadian, Noah’s team moved fast. On a Monday morning, he told his team to clear their calendars. By the end of the week, Swap Canadian, a feature that lets users swap products in their shopping list for Canadian-made alternatives, was live. It followed the earlier Swap and Save feature, but this one had a cultural charge behind it.

4. Agentic AI won’t just change how brands run loyalty, it’ll change how Canadians experience it: Noah is candid that AI is already shaping how PC Optimum targets and personalizes offers. But the bigger shift, he argues, will happen on the consumer side. As agentic commerce becomes part of everyday life, the interaction will evolve: not just “build my grocery basket,” but “build my basket and make sure I’m getting the most points possible.” The loyalty assistant of the near future will ask whether you want to earn points on this purchase, or whether you should redeem some of your balance now.

Where can you watch and listen

Find the full conversation and valuable insights on our YouTube channel, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. Choose your favorite podcast provider below:

1. YouTube:

2. Spotify:

3. Apple Podcasts:

More related episodes on OFFBounds:
🎧Transforming Canada’s Largest Grocer into a Digital Powerhouse
🎧Coterie: When Product, Brand, and Experience Align
🎧The Norrøna Way: A Century of Design, Nature and Loyal Communities
🎧Scaling Connection: Inside Mecca’s Emotion-Driven Retail Model

Next Week

On April 7th, we welcome Petr Lizner, Head of Strategy at Rohlik Group. The interview will explore the company’s online grocery model, its path to growth and profitability, and key strategic decisions around operations, channels, and customer experience. It will also touch on Rohlik’s evolving identity and conclude with insights for the future of e-grocery.

Follow us to stay ahead in the retail world; all our social links and podcast platforms are right here.

Hello everyone,

Walk into almost any store today, and it becomes clear when something is off. A product that should be front and center is missing, or a core item is out of stock. Customers notice it immediately, and so do the people who know retail from the inside… and these moments are rarely accidents. They are the visible result of decisions made upstream, in planning cycles, and siloed team structures. Luckily, our guest Liza Amlani has spent over two decades tracking exactly where that chain breaks, and what it takes to repair it.

In this episode, recorded in Toronto, Paula sits down with Liza to trace the gap between retail strategy and retail reality. From a set of jumpsuits that never made it onto the shop floor at Ralph Lauren to the slow and very public unraveling of Hudson’s Bay, this is one of those conversations that will (hopefully) make you see every store visit differently, and make the changes you need in your business.

Enjoy!

In this edition:
1. About the guest
2. Our episode highlights
3. Where can you watch and listen
4. Next week

Subscribe now

About the guest

With over two decades of experience, Liza Amlani has held leadership roles and has been recognized by RETHINK Retail as a Top Retail Expert and selected by the National Retail Federation as part of its Retail Voices community. She is known across the retail industry as The Chief Merchant, being the Principal & Co-Founder of Retail Strategy Group. Liza is co-author of The Whole Sale: Profitable Wholesale Strategies for Brands (2025) and the forthcoming The Material Life: Process Innovation for Retailers and Brands (Routledge, 2025).

“As I took on these roles as a merchant, as a product designer, product developer, what I started to see was that the functions that I was working with — so I would work with design, I'd work with sourcing, I'd work with marketing — we were all pretty disconnected. And that disconnect and that dysfunction definitely showed up on the shop floor.”

Liza’s perspective comes from years of firsthand experience, including her time as Head of Buying for Ralph Lauren in Northern Europe, where she oversaw 150+ shop-in-shops and saw how strategy often fails on the shop floor. She developed a discipline of visiting stores herself, uncovering problems like entire seasons of product stuck in stockrooms due to fixture issues.

Today at Retail Strategy Group, she helps brands rethink the concept-to-market process, break down silos, and foster real cross-functional collaboration. Her approach proves that staying close to the shop floor is where strategy meets execution and transformation happens.

Our Episode Highlights

Here are four key takeaways from our conversation:

1. Why strategy often breaks before it reaches the store: A decision made in a meeting room doesn't automatically become a reality on the shop floor. In one of the examples in the episode, Liza recalls a season at Ralph Lauren where jumpsuits, bought in every color, every print, every delivery, recorded zero sales for days. Only a visit to the floor revealed the reason and saved 150 stores where the buying team scrambled for answers.

2. The real cost of silos across merchandising, design, and supply chain: The disconnect between departments isn’t just an inconvenience; it has a direct cost. When merchandising, design, sourcing, and store operations all work toward separate goals with separate KPIs, the result is what Liza calls the rowing team problem: everyone is moving, but the boat isn’t going anywhere. The solution isn’t a new tool, but restructuring the process that connects those teams from concept to market.

3. How poor execution shows up instantly to customers: Customers read the store: outdated signage, product missing from fixtures, luxury items merchandised the same way as a $10 t-shirt, these are the signals shoppers pick up on immediately, often without being able to name them. Liza traces the visible decline of Hudson’s Bay across years of visits; by the time bankruptcy was announced, anyone who had walked through the doors already knew that the store had been telling the story long before the headlines did.

4. How process, not product, is the real competitive advantage: Zara moves from concept to market in 30 days, when most traditional retailers take 52 weeks or more. The gap isn’t about creativity or budget; it’s about process. Liza argues that the brands winning today are those that have innovated their concept-to-market process before adding any new technology. Fitting technology into an outdated process doesn’t fix the problem; it adds complexity on top of dysfunction.

Where can you watch and listen

Find the full conversation and valuable insights on our YouTube channel, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. Choose your favorite podcast provider below:

1. YouTube:

2. Spotify:

3. Apple Podcasts:

More related episodes on OFFBounds:
🎧The Build-in-Public Strategy Behind Meadow Lane
🎧Building Primark in the US: Awareness, Experience, and Expansion
🎧Inside Westwing’s Turnaround: The Decisions That Changed Everything
🎧Leading With Craft: Jonathan Adler’s Next Chapter
🎧Tony’s Chocolonely and the Future of Conscious Retail

Next Week

On March 31st, we welcome Noah Goldberg, VP & GM of Digital Loyalty at Loblaw Companies Limited. Goldberg discusses leading PC Optimum, Canada's largest loyalty program, which engages 16 million members across Loblaw's grocery, pharmacy, and apparel verticals.

He highlights the program's focus on digital engagement through personalized offers, vendor-sponsored gamification, and the viral "Swap Canadian" list feature. He also explores the future of loyalty through agentic commerce powered by AI and emphasizes a leadership philosophy centered on kindness and fun.

Follow us to stay ahead in the retail world; all our social links and podcast platforms are right here.

Hello everyone,

We talk a lot about technology in retail, the platforms, the integrations, the AI, the buzzwords. What we talk about far less is what it actually takes to make all of that work quietly in the background, while 89 stores stay open, three websites keep running, and nearly 100 vendor contracts stay under control. That is the job Jason Lerman has been doing at UNTUCKit, and he joins us for an honest conversation.

This is one of those interviews that will feel familiar to anyone who has ever sat in a room trying to explain to a CEO why something that sounds simple is going to take four months. And it is just as useful for anyone on the vendor side who wants to understand what a retailer actually needs when they walk into that meeting.

Enjoy!

In this edition:
1. About the brand
2. About the guest
3. Our episode highlights
4. Where can you watch and listen
5. Next week

Subscribe now

About the brand

UNTUCKit was founded in 2011 by Chris Riccobono around a simple idea: shirts designed to be worn untucked. That one insight turned into a brand with 89 stores across the US and Canada, three Shopify-powered websites, and a product line that has grown well beyond the original button-down, into sweaters, travel pants, shorts, suiting, shoes, and even dog collars that match the collar of the shirt.

What started as a DTC story has become a full omnichannel operation, with all the complexity that comes with it. Behind every smooth checkout, every in-store transaction, and every fulfilled order is a technology infrastructure that most customers will never think about, which is, as Jason would say, exactly the point.

About the guest

Jason Lerman has over 15 years of experience. His career began in customer service, fielding calls, absorbing complaints, and asking the questions that eventually moved him out of the support queue and deeper into the systems causing the problems in the first place.

“I just kept asking more questions, learning more, but proving out to those who gave me the chance that they made the right decision. It started in customer service, moved into operations. There's a lot of technology that's involved with operations. You've got to integrate your warehouse to your ERP, to your e-commerce platform, and all those different things. And so I had a very good understanding before I got this position.”

From there, he moved through logistics, operations, and technology roles at brands including Zadig & Voltaire, Vente-Privée with American Express, and Barstool Sports, before returning to UNTUCKit in 2023 as VP of IT & Systems.

Our Episode Highlights

Here are four key takeaways from our conversation:

1. What a "Frankenstein stack" looks like, and how to know when you've built one: A “Frankenstein stack” happens when too many systems don’t work well together. Teams spend more time dealing with integrations, workarounds, and technical limitations than solving the actual problem. It’s usually the result of years of choosing tools in isolation, without a clear plan for how everything connects.

2. How UNTUCKit manages his infrastructure: When Jason joined UNTUCKit, close to 100 contracts were scattered across personal Gmails, many belonging to people who had already left the company. Account managers were unknown, renewal dates were invisible, and nobody had a clear picture of what was actually in use. His first move was simply to get everything in one place. From there, the approach became what he calls “whack-a-mole”, tackle the renewal that’s coming up in 30 days, then the next, then the next.

3. Why data warehousing should be the hub and spoke of any modern retail tech stack: If Jason were building a retail tech stack from scratch today, he'd start on data. Not with the flashiest platform or the most talked-about AI feature, again, with data. He illustrated this with a real example: wanting to use sales data to optimize staff scheduling, but being blocked for months because the revenue data simply wasn't in the right place.

4. Why the best retail technology should be invisible: He sees his role not as the person who brings technology to the forefront, but as the person who makes sure it never has to be. That means training guides thin enough that associates spend more time on the floor than reading them, systems connected enough that a gift card redemption doesn't require three separate platforms, and checkouts that just work. Invisible, and seamless, that's the goal.

Where can you watch and listen

Find the full conversation and valuable insights on our YouTube channel, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. Choose your favorite podcast provider below:

1. YouTube:

2. Spotify:

3. Apple Podcasts:

More related episodes on OFFBounds:
🎧How Helzberg Uses Technology to Remove Frontline Burden
🎧How NVIDIA is Powering the Next Era of AI in Retail
🎧Transforming Canada’s Largest Grocer into a Digital Powerhouse
🎧Korea: How Lotte Group Rethinking Retail in the World’s Most Digitized Market

Next Week

On March 24th, we welcome Liza Amlani, Principal and Co-Founder of Retail Strategy Group. With over 20 years of experience in retail at the corporate office, Liza joins the show to explore how internal dysfunction shows up directly on the shop floor, exposing the growing gap between merchandising strategy and in-store execution through real examples.

Follow us to stay ahead in the retail world; all our social links and podcast platforms are right here.

Hello everyone,

What happens when a first-time retail founder decides to document every step of building a store, including the negative moments, delays, doubts, community feedback, and chaos, in real time on TikTok, without any marketing budget? You get Meadow Lane, along with a line around the block on opening day that lasts for weeks. In this conversation, our host Paula Macaggi chats with Sammy Nussdorf, Founder and CEO of Meadow Lane.

What makes Sammy’s story so compelling isn’t just that he built a beautiful store or that people showed up. It’s that he created demand before even stocking a single shelf or spending a dollar on advertising. For 17 months, Sammy documented the journey on TikTok, testing products and sharing the process with a growing audience that eventually became his first customers. In a world where most brand launches are polished and costly, Meadow Lane was none of those things, and that turned out to be exactly the point. Let’s find some of Sammy’s secrets. Enjoy!

In this edition:
1. About the brand
2. About the guest
3. Our episode highlights
4. Where can you watch and listen
5. Next week

Subscribe now

About the brand

Meadow Lane is a high-end prepared food market that opened in November 2025 in Tribeca, New York, designed around a very specific gap Sammy identified in the Manhattan food landscape: the space between fast-casual bowl concepts, which can become monotonous, and fine dining, which is an entirely different commitment.

Meadow Lane sits in the middle, fresh, high-quality, grab-and-go food made daily, from miso salmon bowls to gluten-free fried chicken, alongside a curated grocery section, a matcha and coffee bar, weekly floral installations, and a consumer product shelf that Sammy spent over a year filling through taste tests, and showing his future customers.

At around 2,000 square feet in Tribeca, it is intentionally small, intentionally curated, and intentionally designed to feel like a place you want to spend time in, not rush through like the New York normal mood. Vogue described it as “one of the most anticipated gourmet stores in the city”. Others have called it “the Erewhon of New York”. While the media talks about the company, Sammy keeps posting the journey every day on TikTok, now with almost 150k followers and over 8 million likes.

About the guest

Sammy Nussdorf, 28, grew up in Manhattan, studied at NYU, and went to culinary school before spending years building a career in venture capital, a world where reading consumer behavior and spotting which brands will take off is the entire job.

“I think what made my Venture Capital career successful was having an inherent understanding of what consumers want and what brands are going to take off, understanding consumer psychology. That experience and seeing companies perform really well led itself well to having the same experience when I met with founders and tried their products as the curation of Meadow Lane.”

When the pandemic hit, he pivoted again, becoming a professional floral designer. It was only on 2019, watching Dean & DeLuca close its SoHo doors, that the idea for Meadow Lane began to take shape.

Our Episode Highlights

Here are four key takeaways from our conversation:

1. Why Sammy decided to document the entire process on TikTok: Every agency he met offered deliverables that felt inauthentic and expensive. So he downloaded TikTok and noticed that people are drawn to watching things come to completion, and made a bet: if people will watch someone make a recipe start to finish, they might also watch someone build a business start to finish. That bet turned into 17 months of content, a community of tens of thousands of followers, and a store launch that needed no paid promotion.

2. How "building in public" created anticipation before the doors opened: The delays that plagued Meadow Lane's construction could have killed the project's momentum. Instead, they became part of the story. Followers made jokes, rallied around him, visited the construction site, and created their own content about a store that did not yet exist. By the time Meadow Lane opened, they were finally getting to walk into something they had been part of building.

3. How community feedback shaped the menu and product curation: Follower questions about gluten-free and vegan options shaped what made it to the shelves. A suggestion to package fried chicken in a clamshell to keep it crispy, inspired by McDonald's, became standard practice, custom-printed with the Meadow Lane logo.

4. Why social media became the only marketing strategy, and what that means for retail: For him, building in public is not just a viable alternative to traditional marketing. It costs nothing, it builds genuine community, and it creates the kind of demand that no paid campaign can manufacture. For a founder who expected 300 customers a day and opened to 1,000, the results speak clearly enough.

Where can you watch and listen

Find the full conversation and valuable insights on our YouTube channel, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. Choose your favorite podcast provider below:

1. YouTube:

2. Spotify:

3. Apple Podcasts:

More related episodes on OFFBounds:
🎧The Norrøna Way: A Century of Design, Nature and Loyal Communities
🎧Scaling Connection: Inside Mecca’s Emotion-Driven Retail Model
🎧How Dyson Transformed Its Global Retail Experience with Stuart Frelick

Next Week

On March 17th, we welcome Jason Lerman, Vice President of IT & Systems at UNTUCKit. In a conversation about how a clothing retailer navigates the complexities of a multi-platform retail technology landscape. From fighting the “Frankenstein stack” of legacy systems to planning a flexible, data-centric future, the conversation explores the hard realities of integrating technology, managing vendor expectations, and preparing for the disruptive arrival of “agentic AI” in the retail world.

Follow us to stay ahead in the retail world; all our social links and podcast platforms are right here.

A special message from our host, Paula Macaggi, about the episode below :)

Hello everyone,

We often hear that a great customer experience is inevitable to every brand, not just to sales growth, but building lasting loyalty and community. What we find in this conversation, is a masterclass of those beliefs in practice, from how to gather customer feedback and turn that into real product innovation, to a team that picks up the phone the moment a post-purchase survey comes in, and even their exclusive service in customer’s home.

In this 30-gold-minutes, she doesn't just talk about customer obsession as a value, she shows you the systems, the culture, the rituals, and the small human moments that make it real. And as she would say herself: “without the customer, there's nothing”. Enjoy!

In this edition:
1. About the brand
2. About the guest
3. Our episode highlights
4. Where can you watch and listen
5. Next week

Subscribe now

About the brand

Boll & Branch is a premier direct-to-consumer luxury bedding brand founded in 2014 by Scott and Missy Tannen. Headquartered in Summit, New Jersey, Boll & Branch was the first bedding brand to be certified by Fair Trade USA, offering 100% organic cotton products, with fair wages and safe working conditions guaranteed throughout the supply chain. Today, the company generates over $200 million in annual revenue, operates 15 retail locations, and is sold through select retailers including Nordstrom.

About the guest

Anna Esrov brings over 15 years of eCommerce experience across luxury and CPG, with a background spanning digital merchandising, strategy, product management, operations, and customer experience. At Boll & Branch, Anna oversees a team that spans social listening, in-house customer service, and a clienteling and loyalty function designed to replicate the intimacy of a great in-store experience.

“I kind of see myself being around customer experience from the day I was, probably two years old. My mom actually founded a cheer and dance apparel company with her sister in the 80s and ran the business for a majority of my childhood. We ate, breathed the business just because it was inside of our house. And I have memories of her just dealing with customers, building relationships, problem solving, and I think that really stuck with me.”

In many ways, she grew up inside the excelence she brings everyday to customers, watching her mother run a cheer and dance apparel business from their home, building customer relationships and problem-solving in real time. That early formation shaped everything.

Our Episode Highlights

Here are four key takeaways from our conversation:

1. Making Unreasonable Hospitality a living culture: Inspired by Will Guidara’s sucess book, the brand has embedded surprise-and-delight into onboarding and daily rituals. Each ambassador has a dedicated budget to create memorable moments, from sewing custom pillowcases to sending traveling customers to dinner. The power isn’t in the spend, but in the permission. As Anna says, “When you see how good it makes the customer feel, it’s the best feeling.”

2. Turning 50%+ survey response rates into real-time action: Most brands treat post-purchase surveys as reports. Boll & Branch treats them as a live conversation. Over half of customers respond, and the feedback flows directly into Slack, where teams monitor it in real time and act immediately, often calling customers back the same day. What many assume disappears into a black hole becomes an operational priority.

3. How customer feedback becomes product innovation: Real-time listening fuels product development. When customers repeatedly requested split flex sheets, a niche product few brands offer, the team invited them into prototype testing, gathered photos and feedback, and iterated quickly. A recurring request became a full launch.

4. In-home styling as a loyalty engine: Room Service by Boll & Branch began as a practical solution: customers loved the product but lacked confidence styling it. Brand ambassadors now visit homes to style beds alongside customers, teaching techniques and building trust. Nine times out of ten, it leads to another room. What started as a service became a loyalty strategy embedded across stores.

Where can you watch and listen

Find the full conversation and valuable insights on our YouTube channel, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. Choose your favorite podcast provider below:

1. YouTube:

2. Spotify:

3. Apple Podcasts:

More related episodes on OFFBounds:
🎧Coterie: When Product, Brand, and Experience Align
🎧Adding Value Through Storytelling and Customer Experience
🎧The Rise of Brand Memberships and the Future of Customer Loyalty

Next Week

On March 10th, we welcome Sammy Nussdorf, Founder & CEO of Meadow Lane. It's a discussion about how a TikTok account generated such buzz even before launching his luxury grocery store in Tribeca. From lines waiting for a concierge to let people in and shop, we explore what this success masks and what’s next for Sammy, the trend-setting entrepreneur.

Follow us to stay ahead in the retail world; all our social links and podcast platforms are right here.

Hello everyone,

There’s a particular kind of challenge that marketers face: not just launching a product, but creating an entirely new category around it. Emily Ketchen, SVP & CMO of Intelligent Devices Group & International Markets at Lenovo, is living that challenge right now, and she walks us through it.

But in this conversation, Emily doesn’t tell us only about the AI PC, but also how to build awareness across different locations, frameworks that help the real tasks get done, and why marketing a product that even curious, tech-savvy people don’t fully understand yet might be the most exciting opportunity in a generation. Enjoy!

In this edition:
1. About the brand
2. About the guest
3. Our episode highlights
4. Where can you watch and listen
5. Next week

Subscribe now

About the brand

Founded in Beijing in 1984, Lenovo is the world’s largest PC and smart devices company, with a presence in 180 markets. Its portfolio spans personal computers, tablets, smartphones (through its Motorola brand), smart home devices, servers, and storage.

Lenovo’s brand promise, “Smarter Technology for All”, reflects its deep commitment to the democratization of technology, making cutting-edge innovation accessible across geographies, industries, and communities. Today, Lenovo is at the forefront of the AI PC category, positioning AI-powered compute as the next defining shift in personal technology, not unlike the introduction of the internet or the smartphone before it, according to Emily.

About the guest

When Emily Ketchen joined Lenovo five and a half years ago, she arrived with a transformation agenda. She built Centers of Excellence for media, insights, and ROI measurement from the ground up, not by outsourcing the thinking, but by bringing the competencies inside. Her goal was: marketers who actually understand the landscape they’re operating in can write better briefs, ask better questions, and make better decisions.

Born in Brazil and raised across eight countries, including Greece, France, Norway, Spain, Scotland, Singapore, and the United States, Emily brings a deeply global perspective to brand building and cultural relevance.

“I think one of the most important pieces is when you are young, and I was in school, and I wanted to fit in with those kids. And so I was a student of humanity, watching them. What did they wear? How did they speak? What was their language? So that applies perfectly to marketing, right? I'm constantly thinking about culture, my customers, and the customer journey.”

Before Lenovo, she built her career across agencies and brands, and today she also serves in board and advisory roles that keep her connected to the broader marketing ecosystem. She is a self-described endlessly curious learner, the kind of leader whose 30-minute meetings frequently run to 45, because she’s asking 60 questions along the way.

Our Episode Highlights

Here are four key takeaways from our conversation with Emily:

1. Building a transformation from the inside out: When Emily joined Lenovo, she started with structure, not campaigns. She built Centers of Excellence for media, insights, and ROI, bringing critical capabilities in-house so marketers could navigate industry shifts, write stronger briefs, and make smarter budget decisions. Today, these COEs serve Lenovo globally, embedding shared expertise that scales across teams, services, and infrastructure.

2. The once-in-30-years opportunity: the AI PC: Emily sees the AI PC moment as comparable to the early internet, not fully understood yet, but inevitable. This isn’t just faster hardware; it’s AI embedded into the device, able to generate notes, translate, act, and gradually build a personal knowledge base that anticipates user needs. The marketer’s role? Turn abstraction into reality by showing how AI meaningfully fits into everyday life.

3. Global campaigns, local magic, the “Glocal” model: Lenovo builds global creative platforms, then empowers markets to reinterpret them. From a 3D OOH execution in London to a skyscraper-scale activation in Tokyo, the core idea remains consistent while the cultural expression adapts. It’s not translation, but “transcreation” according to Emily, and it’s how a brand in 180 markets stays cohesive yet locally resonant.

4. Sports as unifier and growth engine: Lenovo’s partnerships with Formula 1 and FIFA are technology integrations, not traditional sponsorships. From powering F1’s global operations to becoming FIFA’s first technical partner for the upcoming World Cup, the strategy blends cultural relevance with measurable ROI. With F1’s audience surging and FIFA reaching billions, sport becomes both an emotional connector and a global growth platform.

Where can you watch and listen

Find the full conversation and valuable insights on our YouTube channel, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. Choose your favorite podcast provider below:

1. YouTube:

2. Spotify:

3. Apple Podcasts:

More related episodes on OFFBounds:
🎧The Marketing Behind Better Ingredients, Better Pizza
🎧Creative Ways to Reach Grocery Customers with Finland’s Largest Retailer
🎧The Beauty of Connection: How Investing in Community and Expertise Drives Retail Success
🎧Adding Value Through Storytelling and Customer Experience

Next Week

On March 3rd, we welcome Anna Esrov, VP of Customer Experience at Boll and Branch. Anna shares how the luxury bedding company built its brand on founder-led customer obsession, from the Tannen’s personally answering calls to piping real-time post-purchase feedback into Slack to drive product innovation.

Discover the unique 'Room Service by Boll and Branch,' their in-home bed-styling service, and how their culture of 'Unreasonable Hospitality' empowers every associate to go above and beyond, proving that connection and experience are the new pillars of retail.

Follow us to stay ahead in the retail world; all our social links and podcast platforms are right here.

Hello everyone,

We know that value fashion is one of the most saturated retail categories in America. Ultra-low-price competitors can deliver to your door, and fast fashion giants have unlimited inventory and algorithm-driven trend forecasting. Legacy retailers own the malls. So how does a European brand scale in the US without e-commerce, relying entirely on physical stores to drive growth?

Rene Federico, Head of Marketing for Primark US, joined the studios to discuss exactly that. With over 20 years of career, Rene now has to build top-of-mind awareness for a brand that tracks 40 basis points behind competitors, yet dramatically outpaces them in customer retention once people walk through the door.

From the “This is So Primark” campaign to pop-up studios in NoHo, NFL licensing moments, and the upcoming Herald Square flagship, she reveals a growth playbook built on listening, experiential marketing, and protecting brand perception while scaling fast. Enjoy!

In this edition:
1. About the brand
2. About the guest
3. Our episode highlights
4. Where can you watch and listen
5. Next week

Subscribe now

About the brand

Founded in Dublin, Ireland, in 1969, Primark has grown into one of Europe's most recognized and beloved fashion retailers, operating over 400 stores across 14 countries. From infant clothing to licensed NFL apparel, trend-forward pieces to everyday essentials, Primark serves a broad demographic united by a desire for accessible fashion and an in-store shopping experience, which Rene emphasizes a lot in the conversation.

Primark entered the US market in 2015, adopting a deliberate test-and-learn approach to understand American consumers and regional market differences. It currently operates 38 stores across the Eastern United States and is in active growth mode.

In 2024, Primark launched its first major US brand campaign, “That’s So Primark,” celebrating the emotional connection customers feel when they discover stylish pieces at affordable prices, find everything their family needs in one shopping trip, or stumble upon items they weren’t even looking for. For 2026, the upcoming Herald Square flagship in Manhattan represents a pivotal moment: a statement opening on one of the world’s premier retail streets, designed to anchor the brand’s presence in the critical New York metro market.

About the guest

Rene Federico is Head of Marketing for Primark US, where she leads brand awareness and customer acquisition strategy during a critical phase of the retailer’s American expansion. With more than 20 years of marketing leadership experience at Nike and Converse, Rene has built her career at brands defined by passionate, consumer-obsessed cultures. At Primark, she’s building awareness for a brand focused on joy enabled through style and affordability.

Rene’s appointment in 2024 marked a strategic investment in Primark’s US growth trajectory as the brand accelerates toward broader market penetration. Her role centers on a unique marketing challenge: driving footfall to physical stores in a digital-first retail environment, building top-of-mind awareness in a crowded value fashion market, and translating a beloved European brand identity for American consumers. Based in Boston, Rene is currently leading the charge toward Primark’s most ambitious US milestone on the opening of the brand’s Herald Square flagship.

Our Episode Highlights

Here are four key takeaways from our conversation with Rene:

1. The Awareness Gap and Retention Advantage: Primark faces a fascinating paradox in the US market: the brand tracks 40 basis points behind competitors in awareness, yet dramatically outpaces its competitive set in customer retention. Once consumers visit a Primark store, the likelihood they'll return is exceptionally high. This creates a clear strategic imperative: the marketing challenge isn't retention, it's initial acquisition. Rene's role centers on closing that awareness gap and driving first-time footfall, knowing that the in-store experience is compelling enough to convert trial into loyalty.

2. The Spectrum of Customer Acquisition Costs: Rene articulates a nuanced approach to acquisition that balances high-cost experiential activations with low-cost in-store tactics. On one end sits the NoHo brand studio, a pop-up experience designed to create brand fans through tactile, immersive engagement. It's expensive but delivers earned media and emotional connection that digital advertising can't match. On the other end: in-store Wi-Fi opt-ins that capture email addresses at minimal cost but massive scale. The strategy isn't choosing one or the other, it's understanding what each delivers and maintaining balance.

3. Physical Retail as Cultural Participation: Rene frames Primark's expansion through the lens of cultural moments and community connection. When the New England Patriots reach the Super Bowl, it's not just a retail opportunity, it's a chance to participate in a broader cultural conversation and use data-driven targeting to serve relevant product to geographically aligned consumers. The NoHo studio activation leading up to the Herald Square flagship isn't just pre-launch buzz, it's a strategy to test brand pull in an unexpected location and build community before the flagship doors open.

4. Listening as Marketing Strategy: When asked for advice to marketers growing brands in the US market, Rene's answer cuts against the grain of performance marketing orthodoxy: be a great listener first, then solve marketing problems. She argues that marketing has become overly clinical, focused on pushing messaging, optimizing channels, defending ROI, at the expense of deep customer understanding. The most effective path to discovering what makes a brand special is listening: to customers, to people managing the brand day-to-day, to agency partners bringing insights, to the market itself.

Where can you watch and listen

Find the full conversation and valuable insights on our YouTube channel, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. Choose your favorite podcast provider below:

1. YouTube:

2. Spotify:

3. Apple Podcasts:

More related episodes on OFFBounds:
🎧The Power of Premium Positioning: Illy Caffè’s Formula for Growth
🎧Scaling Melissa in America: Lessons in Authenticity and Community
🎧Investing in People and Technology: The Success of Sunglass Hut

Next Week

On February 24th, we welcome Emily Ketchen, the SVP & CMO of Intelligent Devices Group & International Markets at Lenovo, to explore partnerships, new categories in its Marketing Strategy, the company's Multi-Year Transformation and Center of Excellence (COE) Model, and more!

Follow us to stay ahead in the retail world; all our social links and podcast platforms are right here.

Hello everyone,

Baby care is one of the most crowded CPG categories in retail. Legacy brands have unlimited distribution, massive marketing budgets, and decades of consumer trust. So how does a digital-first diaper brand not just survive, but thrive, against giants like P&G and Kimberly-Clark?

No one better than Ankur Goyal, SVP of Growth at Coterie, to discuss exactly that. From discovering their “sleep” positioning through customer reviews to scaling without discounts, Ankur reveals a growth playbook.

In the end, this is an episode about diapers that you don’t want to miss. It can help your company in ways you never imagined. Enjoy!

In this edition:
1. About the brand
2. About the guest
3. Our episode highlights
4. Where can you watch and listen
5. Next week

Subscribe now

About the brand

Coterie is a premium baby care brand that started with diapers and has expanded into wipes and skincare. Launched in 2019 by Frank Yu, the brand built its foundation on three pillars: differentiated product (ultra-soft, hypoallergenic materials), exceptional customer experience (subscription service with text-based support), and aspirational brand positioning (the diaper brand featured in Vogue).

Coterie operates primarily direct-to-consumer while maintaining strategic retail partnerships with Whole Foods, Erewhon, and Wegmans. The brand was acquired by Mammoth Brands, signaling the next phase of omnichannel expansion.

About the guest

Ankur Goyal is the SVP of Growth at Coterie, where he oversees customer acquisition, retention, brand strategy, and omnichannel expansion. He joined the company during its main scaling period and has been instrumental in shaping the messaging, positioning, and growth infrastructure that allowed Coterie to compete in the categorie.

At the role, he and his team has also leveraged a direct-to-consumer model to create unique, high-touch services, like a dedicated sizing service and travel packs, that are key to building credibility, customer trust, and long-term loyalty. He also brings a personal connection to the product, as he is a father who has experienced firsthand the benefits of Coterie's performance.

Our Episode Highlights

Here are four key takeaways from our conversation with Ankur:

1. Your CAC Is More Controllable Than You Think: This is one of the sharpest takes on customer acquisition we’ve heard on OFFBounds. Ankur challenges the dominant D2C narrative that rising CAC is inevitable, arguing that most brands focus on where they distribute their message (channels) instead of what they’re actually saying. For Coterie, that moment was discovering through customer reviews that parents were sleeping better because the diapers wicked moisture away so fast that babies stayed asleep.

2. Quality Over Quantity: Ankur reveals that Coterie has scaled profitably without ever discounting, a deliberate strategy to maintain premium positioning and attract high-quality customers from day one. While running a sale might boost short-term acquisition numbers, it trains customers to wait for discounts and degrades perceived value. Instead, Coterie focuses on acquiring the right customers who understand and appreciate the product’s value proposition. The result: stronger retention, higher lifetime value, and a sustainable business model.

3. Building Trust in Digital-First Baby Care: Trust is the biggest barrier for digital-first brands in baby care, parents want the best for their babies and vetting a brand online feels riskier than picking one off a Costco shelf. Ankur explains how Coterie built multi-layered credibility: industry awards, medical expert panels, strategic retail partnerships, and authentic influencer relationships that amplify real customer experiences.

4. “We’re charting our own path in this market.”: Ankur breaks down Coterie’s three-part competitive advantage: differentiated product (performance, materials, feel), direct customer relationships (personalized service and subscription flexibility), and aspirational brand positioning (the only diaper brand covered by Vogue). While being online-only limits distribution, it enables experiences that mass retailers simply can’t deliver, like texting to adjust your shipment at 3 a.m. or receiving a vacation pack at your hotel.

Where can you watch and listen

Find the full conversation and valuable insights on our YouTube channel, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. Choose your favorite podcast provider below:

1. YouTube:

2. Spotify:

3. Apple Podcasts:

Next Week

On February 17th, we welcome Rene Federico, Head of Marketing at Primark, to explore how physical retail drives loyalty, why customer acquisition costs vary wildly across channels, and what it takes to scale a European icon in the American market.

Follow us to stay ahead in the retail world; all our social links and podcast platforms are right here.

It’s been a while since we last landed in your inbox. It was last year, our host Paula caught COVID, interviews got rescheduled, and honestly, we needed to pause and regroup. But 2026 is here, and we’re coming back strong, because newsletters matter. They’re a direct line to you, our listeners, without fighting algorithms or hoping the right post surfaces at the right time.

While we were quiet in your inbox, we weren’t quiet everywhere else. This January, we went beyond trends to understand the decisions shaping retail at scale, from memberships and loyalty conversations with Jack Stratten to 27 pieces of coverage during NRF Content Week, to conversations with leaders like Andreas Hoerning (Westwing’s CEO) and Marianna Satanas (HANRO USA’s President).

And if you missed our Q4 lineup, we brought you insights from illycaffè’s VP of Marketing Cristian Arcangeli, Build-A-Bear’s success especial episode, Norrøna’s CCO Martin Lien, NRF’s SVP Jill Dvorak, Ometria’s Rita Martins and Hannah Stacey breaking down Black Friday data, Jonathan Adler’s President Mary Beth Sheridan, and our 100th episode milestone with Oliver Banks interviewing Paula about the year that was.

We even had a PRIZE recognition in the meantime, isn’t this amazing? Now we can tell that we are an “award-winning podcast”, thanks to the Vendors in Partnership Awards, which call us “The Retail Voice of 2026”.

Now, we’re kicking off February 2026 properly with an episode that captures everything we believe in: thoughtful innovation, frontline empowerment, and the belief that technology works best when it amplifies humanity. Let’s find out more about it below.

In this edition:
1. About the brand
2. About the guest
3. Our episode highlights
4. Where can you watch and listen
5. Next week

Subscribe now

About the brand

Helzberg Diamonds is a full-service jewelry retailer operating 161 stores across the United States, owned by Berkshire Hathaway. Founded 111 years ago as a family business, Helzberg became part of Warren Buffett’s portfolio in 1995 after a legendary chance encounter on the streets of New York, when the founder’s grandson Barnett Helzberg Jr. spotted his idol across the street, ran over, and pitched him the business on the spot. Helzberg later wrote about it in a book called “What I Learned Before I Sold to Warren Buffett: An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Developing a Highly Successful Company.”

Beyond its ownership, Helzberg’s distinction lies in its commitment to standards and ethics. The company is a proud member of the American Gem Society, a voluntary organization dedicated to protecting consumers through education, integrity, and ethical practices in the jewelry industry. That commitment extends to how Helzberg trains its frontline workers and serves customers navigating one of retail’s most emotional purchases: engagement rings, anniversary gifts, and pieces meant to memorialize love stories.

About the guest

Ryan Holm is the Divisional VP of Retail Innovation and Operations at Helzberg Diamonds, but his path to that role started on the sales floor. He spent his early years at Helzberg managing stores and then territories, building the kind of lived experience that now gives him what he calls "street cred" when rolling out new technology across all its locations.

During COVID, Ryan found his niche: bridging the gap between technology and frontline teams. Today, his role is all about partnership, ensuring that any tech Helzberg’s employees use actually makes their jobs easier, not harder. He leads large-scale transformation initiatives, from AI-powered workforce tools to cutting-edge clienteling platforms, always with one question in mind: Does this help the people closest to our customers do their best work?

Ryan was recently named Retail Partner Person of the Year by VIP Awards, recognition that reflects his philosophy of treating solution providers as actual partners rather than vendors. His mission, as he puts it, is simple: "Build smarter retail by listening and serving the needs of the frontlines."

Our Episode Highlights

Here are four key takeaways from our conversation with Ryan:

1. Technology should remove burden, not replace people: Early in his Helzberg career, Ryan met Christie Griffin, a senior store manager who could effortlessly connect with customers and coach her team. But he also noticed she spent hours each month pulling reports and setting goals, administrative work that drained time from what she did best. Ryan built a simple Excel automation to save managers like Christie an hour or two every month.

2. In Jewelry Retail, you're selling “Lifelong Relationships”: Ryan explains why jewelry retail is fundamentally different: "A great sales associate in regular retail is going to convert more sales for you, which is great. A great jewelry sales associate is going to start a lifelong relationship with customers." Customers buying engagement rings aren't shopping for the best price; they're memorializing their love story. The sales cycle can span six or seven visits, involve custom designs, and require deep empathy.

3. AI-Powered Tools delivered real results: Helzberg's tech stack reflects Ryan's philosophy. Legion, their AI-powered workforce management platform, reduced manager scheduling time by 66% by creating optimized schedules based on demand drivers while giving associates flexibility. Proximity, their clienteling platform, enables associates to text customers, create e-commerce baskets, and stay connected for birthdays and anniversaries long after the sale.

4. Find your Innovators, not your “Perfect Pilot Market”: Ryan's advice for rolling out new technology? Stop picking pilot stores based on market analysis. Instead, find your innovators, the frontline employees who are bored, curious, and excited to test new tools. "Build a volunteer army of people willing to get on board," he says, "because word in retail frontlines spreads fast. Those connections are deep. They all talk. They know each other." When enthusiastic early adopters become ambassadors, adoption becomes organic.

Where can you watch and listen

Find the full conversation and valuable insights on our YouTube channel, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. Choose your favorite podcast provider below:

1. YouTube:

2. Spotify:

3. Apple Podcasts:

Next Week

On February 10th, we welcome Ankur Goyal, SVP of Growth at Coterie, to our first episode featuring a high-performing diapers brand. Yes, you read right.

Follow us to stay ahead in the retail world; all our social links and podcast platforms are right here.

Live from New York, this episode brings a grounded perspective on retail’s most unpredictable season. As inflation, tariffs, and consumer anxiety shape the outlook for 2025, Richard Kestenbaum, Partner at Triangle Capital LLC and veteran investment banker, argues that the path forward isn’t about chasing growth at all costs. It’s about resilience.

In conversation with our host Paula Macaggi, Richard breaks down why “flat is the new up,” how inflation distorts retail forecasts, and what smart players are doing to survive turbulence without losing sight of long-term goals.

In this edition:
1. About the guest
2. Our episode highlights
3. Where can you watch and listen
4. Next week

Subscribe now

About the guest

Richard Kestenbaum co-founded Triangle Capital LLC in 2003 and has spent his career advising acquirers and founders across retail and consumer. His deal work gives him a practical lens on how consumer behavior and corporate strategy intersect, and he regularly translates that perspective for wider audiences through a Forbes-hosted blog, speaking engagements, and media commentary. A repeated nominee for Top Retail Influencer, Richard combines transactional experience with a clear grasp of market trends.

“I see all these forecasts, and they’re generally for up numbers. Now, there’s a little bit of noise in those numbers because there’s inflation. So you have to take inflation out of the numbers and ask yourself what’s real and what isn’t.”

As he puts it, 2025 isn’t a season for maximization; it’s a season for survival. For retailers, that means protecting margins, staying disciplined, and investing in technologies that lower cost structures. Because when the market finally steadies, those who’ve built resilience will be ready to grow again.

“Retail is in rough seas. Smart players are staying conservative.”

Our Episode Highlights

Here are four key takeaways from our conversation with Richard:

1. Why Stability might be the new growth for this Holiday Season: Richard explained that “flat is the new up” for the 2025 holiday season in real, inflation-adjusted terms. This is because consumers are facing higher interest rates and increased concern about inflation. This scenario leads to reduced discretionary spending, meaning people are less willing to spend on non-essential items.

2. Inflation, Tariffs, and Pricing Pressure: They create an environment of uncertainty for retailers, making it difficult to plan inventory and pricing. Consequently, fewer deals are expected due to less unsold merchandise. Richard noted that consumers are more cautious about prices, and retailers are passing on costs, resulting in price increases of 3% to 7% or more, depending on the product.

3. Strategies for Brands to safeguard their Margins: to navigate uncertainty and protect margins, Richard advised retailers to be conservative in the short term and to invest in technology in the long term to lower costs. He stressed that maximizing profits implies taking risks, and that the current period calls for caution. The goal is to survive the holiday period with decent margins and prepare for a more stable future.

4. What’s Influencing Retail Finance: In the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) landscape, uncertainty leads to a market where buyers seek bargains from companies with weak balance sheets. The advice for brands looking to sell is to manage their businesses with a long-term view, as if they were never going to sell. This approach is valued by buyers during due diligence and strengthens the company’s negotiation power.

Where can you watch and listen

Find the full conversation and valuable insights on our YouTube channel, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. Choose your favorite podcast provider below:

1. YouTube:

2. Spotify:

3. Apple Podcasts:

More OFFBounds trends episodes:
🎧What-Shein-Can’t-Do: The Rise of Premium Retail
🎧Running Into the Future: How Brands Are Riding the Running Wave
🎧How Former Athletes Excel as Successful Business Leaders
🎧The Growth of Recommerce: How Brands are Investing in this New Phenomenon

Next Week

This Thursday, on October 23rd, the fourth episode of our series “Retail Intelligence in Action” in partnership with Ometria, presented by Retail icon and 2x Bestselling Author Ron Thurston.

He is joined by Ometria’s Co-Founders Ivan Mazour and Djalal Lougouev. As AI matures into something much more than just another tool, it’s initiating a significant shift that demands a complete rethink of the entire marketing tech stack.

In this episode, we explore what retail marketers need to prioritize to build a future-proofed tech stack that unlocks and enhances AI’s capabilities. We ask: Is this the end of segmentation as we know it? Is the “best-of-breed” stack still viable? And could consolidated systems and data be the new gold standard?

Follow us to stay ahead in the retail world; all our social links and podcast platforms are right here.

Today, we’re revisiting our episode with Dara Meath, the CTO of Build-A-Bear. The reason? This teddy bear company has become a true phenomenon on the stock market, outperforming even some of the biggest tech giants, including NVIDIA.

But why did their business scale so much that the stock price skyrocketed nearly 1,900 percent? Since our interview with Dara last year, Build-A-Bear has continued to grow, driven by a mix of emotional connection with all ages, digital transformation, and a meaningful retail experience that keeps evolving.

In this edition:
1. About the brand
2. About the guest
3. Our episode highlights
4. Where can you watch and listen
5. Next week

Subscribe now

About the brand

Build-A-Bear began in 1997 with a simple yet magical idea from founder Maxine Clark: to create a place where children could bring their furry friends to life. What started as a single workshop in the St. Louis Galleria Mall has since grown into a global brand with nearly 525 locations worldwide, a thriving e-commerce platform, and even its own entertainment division, Build-A-Bear Radio and Build-A-Bear Entertainment, collaborating with Hollywood studios and stars.

More than a toy company, Build-A-Bear has become a symbol of emotional connection and creativity, transforming the simple act of making a teddy bear into a meaningful experience. It’s considered the pioneer in the “Experiential Retail” category, described in the great book “The Experience Economy”, which we also covered last year, in our Episode 32, “8 Leadership Books to Read this Summer”.

“I think we just bring happiness to everybody every day, right? It’s an experienced location, as you mentioned, and it really brings a lot more heart to people. We gather those who are just celebrating their first birthday to those celebrating their 92nd birthday. And they want to just, you know, have a little something special for themselves to really be a part of that celebration, right?”

Today, the brand continues to evolve through innovation, digital transformation, and an authentic sense of joy that resonates with customers of all ages, from children celebrating their first birthdays to adults rediscovering the magic of childhood, and their stocks don’t lie.

About the guest

Dara Meath brings +25 years of experience in IT, as Chief Technology Officer of Build-A-Bear, she has played a key role in transforming a beloved retail brand into a digital-first powerhouse. With a career spanning technology, innovation, and leadership across major retail organizations, Dara brought to Build-A-Bear a results-driven yet human-centered approach to transformation.

“Digital transformation for us was that we were at a great starting block, but over the last 18 months, we’ve incredibly unlocked the things of mobile POS in our stores. What’s been done has helped us to activate our guests, as I was saying, in that seamless process. In-out gives the guests a little bit of a display about who we are and how to interact with us in a personalized manner.”

Under her leadership, the company accelerated what would normally be a five-year digital roadmap into just 18 months, implementing mobile POS systems, enhancing e-commerce experiences, and expanding into 2D and 3D environments that bring the brand’s magic online. Beyond the tech achievements, Dara is known for leading with heart, connecting teams to the emotional essence of the brand, joy, creativity, and connection, values that continue to shape Build-A-Bear’s culture and success story.

Our Episode Highlights

Here are four key takeaways from our episode:

1. The rise of the Kidult: One of the most interesting consumer trends Build-A-Bear is embracing is the rise of the “Kidult”, adults who buy products that reconnect them with childhood joy. From collectors to nostalgic millennials, the “Bear Cave” is full of products designed for this audience, from cozy “caBEARnets” to limited-edition collabs.

2. From tariffs to triumph: Even in the face of challenges like tariffs and inflation, the company keeps its focus clear: storytelling over selling. As CEO Sharon Price John put it: “We are in the business of telling stories, not selling items.” That philosophy transforms every purchase into an emotional investment, and every visitor into an advocate.

3. Leading with heart: One of the most striking parts of my conversation with Dara was how she talked about joy and technology in the same sentence. At Build-A-Bear, culture isn’t a buzzword; it’s built into every bear. Employees start by spending time in the store, learning from real customers and understanding what makes the brand special.

4. A brand that sells stories, not toys: Dara described the company’s purpose in one word: happiness. “We bring happiness to everybody every day. It’s an experience”. That’s what makes Build-A-Bear more than a store. It’s a stage for emotion, and that’s the kind of loyalty you can’t buy with discounts.

Where can you watch and listen

Find the full conversation and valuable insights on our YouTube channel, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. Choose your favorite podcast provider below:

1. YouTube:

2. Spotify:

3. Apple Podcasts:

Listen to more episodes of The Retail Innovation series, which featured Build-a-Bear:
🎧Vera Bradley’s Rebranding: A New Chapter for an Iconic American Brand
🎧Exploring Pandora’s Jewelry Revolution: A Conversation with Luciano Rodembusch
🎧ThredUp’s Evolution: How AI is Transforming the Resale Market
🎧Inside Crate & Barrel’s Omnichannel Strategy with President Alicia Waters
🎧From Bankruptcy to Billion-Dollar Vision: True Religion’s Marketing Playbook

Next Week

On Tuesday, October 21st, at 7:00 AM GMT, our host, Paula Macaggi, will be joined by Richard Kestenbaum, an Investment banker focusing on mergers and acquisitions in retail and consumer. We’re going to explore tariffs and their impact on retail during the holidays.

Also, this Thursday, on October 16th, we’ll launch one more episode of our series “Retail Intelligence in Action” in partnership with Ometria, presented by Retail icon and 2x Bestselling Author Ron Thurston.

Ron Thurston is joined by Djalal Lougouev (CSO, Ometria) and Pri Shumate (CMO, Miami Dolphins). The conversation explores how AI empowers brands to accelerate their operations, quickly validate concepts, understand audience drivers, and reduce dependence on agencies. The discussion emphasizes AI’s role as a creative partner, enhancing storytelling, redefining team functions, and allowing marketers to develop innovative, human-centric strategies.

Follow us to stay ahead in the retail world; all our social links and podcast platforms are right here.

What does it take for an iconic Italian coffee brand to grow its customer base fourfold in one of the most competitive markets in the world? In this episode, the spotlight is on Cristian Arcangeli, Vice President of Marketing, Commercial Strategy, and Digital at illycaffè.

Known for its premium positioning and distinctive identity, illy has managed to capture the attention of American consumers by staying true to its heritage while adapting to new market dynamics. The conversation explores how Arcangeli and his team navigated this ambitious expansion in the United States, with strategy and storytelling.

In this edition:
1. About the brand
2. About the guest
3. Our episode highlights
4. Where can you watch and listen
5. Next week

Subscribe now

About the brand

Founded in Trieste in 1933 by Francesco Illy, illycaffè has grown into a global symbol of Italian excellence. Known for its unique blend of nine top-quality Arabica beans, the company serves more than 8 million cups of coffee daily across 140 countries. Over the decades, illy has also been at the forefront of coffee innovation, from creating the blueprint for modern espresso machines in the 1930s to championing sustainability and artistry in more recent years.

“Illy Cafe is an established Italian coffee brand, and we stand for three things: quality, sustainability, and design art. These are the three pillars of the brand.”

Today, illy continues to blend tradition with innovation under the leadership of Andrea Illy. With more than 20 branded locations in the United States and a reputation built on uncompromising quality, the company has become a global ambassador for Italian coffee culture.

About the guest

Cristian Arcangeli brings over a decade of experience in omnichannel strategy, business growth, and digital transformation. Before joining illycaffè in 2020, he held leadership roles at Gucci and Diesel, and later at Alkemy, where he drove strategic transformation projects for major fashion and consumer brands. At illy, he now leads marketing, commercial strategy, and digital initiatives, with a focus on integrating physical and digital channels to enhance customer engagement.

“There is a quote that I really loved, “The strength of a team is each individual”. Each individual has the strength of a team. I think this is what defines me. I think that if you want to go towards a goal, you need to have each individual be able to make decisions, to act faster, to break boundaries, but on the other side, you need to have like a team that works together because if we work together towards a goal, I’m quite sure that we will achieve.”

Throughout his career, Arcangeli has emphasized three core principles: curiosity, discipline, and team empowerment. He views curiosity as essential for testing new ideas and anticipating market shifts, while discipline ensures focus amid endless opportunities. Equally important is his belief in enabling teams to make decisions and take risks, a leadership style shaped by his own early mentors. His journey reflects how global expertise, paired with strong values, can drive growth while preserving a brand’s essence.

Our Episode Highlights

Here are four key takeaways from our conversation with Cristian:

1. From Niche to Beloved Premium Brand in the U.S.: Under Christian Arcangelis’s leadership, Illy Caffè transformed from a niche European brand into a beloved premium choice in the US market by rapidly expanding its presence and growing its customer base fourfold.

2. Driving Growth Through Storytelling and Consistency: This growth was fueled by building awareness through compelling storytelling around its pillars of quality, sustainability, and design art, and maintaining consistent messaging across all channels.

3. Leveraging Amazon Prime Video for Brand Awareness: Cristian views Amazon as a “great partner,” leveraging it for both sales conversion and, critically, as a brand awareness platform via Prime Video and Streaming TV. Illy pioneered heavy investment in video and streaming ads, which proved impactful despite an initial unsuccessful test.

4. Combining Curiosity with Focus to drive Lasting Growth: This approach, combined with a balance of curiosity to test new initiatives and discipline to persist through initial challenges, led to sustainable growth and positioned Illy to become the coffee Americans think of when they think about coffee.

Where can you watch and listen

Find the full conversation and valuable insights on our YouTube channel, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. Choose your favorite podcast provider below:

1. YouTube:

2. Spotify:

3. Apple Podcasts:

More OFFBounds episodes featuring Italian brands or expansion in the US:
🎧Scaling Melissa in America: Lessons in Authenticity and Community
🎧Investing in People and Technology: The Success of Sunglass Hut

Next Week

On Tuesday, October 14th, at 7:00 AM GMT, our host, Paula Macaggi, will provide a recap of important OFFBounds episodes, explaining why they remain relevant and worth watching.

Also, this Thursday, on October 9th, we’ll launch one more episode of our series “Retail Intelligence in Action” in partnership with Ometria, presented by Retail icon and 2x Bestselling Author Ron Thurston.

Ron Thurston is joined by Ivan Mazour (CEO, Ometria) and Julie Channing (Fractional CMO, 8thirtytwo Ventures) to discuss how retail marketers can ensure AI strengthens their brand identity rather than diluting it.

The conversation explores its role in creative workflows like fashion and visual content, examines challenges around representation and authenticity in AI-generated imagery, and considers the ethical dimensions of transparency and trust in AI-driven marketing.

Follow us to stay ahead in the retail world; all our social links and podcast platforms are right here.

We’re in New York for a very special reason: the launch of Built on Belief, the debut book by retail veteran and professor Matt Marcotte. His message is clear yet provocative: business success isn’t just about products, technology, or strategy. It’s about cultivating a culture of commitment.

In this conversation, Matt shares why employees should be treated as a company’s most important customers, how true inspiration comes from the inside out, and why profit is best understood as the reward for doing the right thing.

In this edition:
1. About the guest
2. Our episode highlights
3. Where can you watch and listen
4. Next week

Subscribe now

About the guest

Matt Marcotte has spent over three decades across various industries, from global retail and financial services to automotive, helping shape some of the world’s most iconic brands. He has held senior leadership roles such as COO of Bergdorf Goodman, Global Head of Retail at Salesforce, and Managing Director of Retail for Apple in North America. Throughout these positions, he learned that while strategy and technology can be copied, culture cannot.

Today, Matt is the Founder and Principal of M2 Collaborative, a consultancy dedicated to building stronger cultures and high-performing teams, and he is also an Adjunct Professor at Boston College.

That belief inspired his new book, “Built on Belief: Why Cultures of Commitment Are the Competitive Advantage”, which officially launches this week. In it, Matt argues that lasting success happens when leaders move beyond compliance and build organizations where people feel genuinely invested.

“So I always say compliance requires supervision, and commitment requires partnership. (...) Commitment is more of making sure that everybody believes in the same end result, or everyone believes in why we’re doing what we’re doing, and then helping them to express their own way of doing that that still fits within the overall vision of what you have. It takes more time upfront, and you have to kind of cycle through people differently because if you don’t believe it, it’s not the place for you to be, right?”

Our Episode Highlights

Here are four key takeaways from our conversation with Matt:

1. Why Employees should be seen as your most Important Customers: Matt Marcotte argues that many leaders view human capital as expendable, as a means to an end, or as “cogs in the wheel.” This mentality leads to a lack of investment in employees. He believes that you must invest in the internal customer (the employee) first before they will invest in the external customer. Employees are the ones who actually drive the purchase and create the reason to buy, whether through assortment creativity, supply chain efficiency, or frontline customer service.

2. The difference between Compliance and Commitment: Matt Marcotte states that compliance requires supervision, while commitment requires partnership. He uses the example of GAP, where store visits were scheduled, and stores would prepare for the visit, resulting in temporary compliance. However, commitment means everyone believes in the same end result and why they are doing what they are doing. This allows people to find their own ways to contribute, which, while taking more time upfront, allows for much faster scaling and better results in the long run, as people act because they want to, not out of obligation.

3. How we think about Profit: Marcotte believes that profit is a reward for doing the right thing. He emphasizes that the focus should be on “inputs,” not “outputs.” Business results are driven by stores (in the retail context), and stores are driven by people. Therefore, to drive results and profit, one must focus on people. This “profit is our reward for doing the right thing” mentality means the focus is on the right area, which is the employees.

4. How to create Brands that inspire from the inside out: Marcotte uses the phrase “baked in, not bolted on” to describe how belief and culture should be built. This means using culture as a filter for decisions. He emphasizes the power of stories to share, teach, and reinforce culture and behaviors. As an example, he mentions Apple, where new store teams spent two weeks in cultural and team-building training before opening, so they felt “ownership” and “agency.” This demonstrates that the company backs up its words with actions, building trust and reinforcing culture from the inside out.

Where can you watch and listen

Find the full conversation and valuable insights on our YouTube channel, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. Choose your favorite podcast provider below:

1. YouTube:

2. Spotify:

3. Apple Podcasts:

More OFFBounds episodes featuring incredible book authors:
📚The Power of Positive Leadership in Retail
📚Why Human Pride Is the Competitive Edge We Need Now
📚Leaders Leap: Transforming Your Company at the Speed of Disruption
📚How to be Intentional and Drive Retail Transformation
📚Falling in Love with the Problem: The Key to Value Creation

Next Week

On Tuesday, October 7th, at 7:00 AM GMT, our host, Paula Macaggi, welcomes Cristian Arcangeli, Vice President of Marketing, Commercial Strategy, and Digital at illy Caffè!

Also, this Thursday, on October 2 nd, we’ll launch our series “Retail Intelligence in Action” in partnership with Ometria, presented by Retail icon and 2x Bestselling Author Ron Thurston.

They are joined by amazing guests who offer unique perspectives and share real-world use cases. Conversations beyond the hype, exploring how AI is reshaping marketing and retail, not just as a tool, but as a driver of new strategies, workflows, and organizational change.

Great things are coming! Follow us to stay ahead in the retail world; all our social links and podcast platforms are right here.

Another episode in partnership with Groceryshop, recorded in New Jersey, this time with Danielle Sporkin, SVP of Media & Marketing Services at Ferrero. Danielle explores the sweet world behind brands we all know and love: Nutella, Kinder, Ferrero Rocher, Tic Tac, as well as American favorites like Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, and Keebler.

In our conversation, she shares lessons from her career in media and marketing, her take on the future of Retail Media, and how Ferrero has managed to expand its global footprint while staying true to its family-owned values.

In this edition:
1. About the business
2. About the guest
3. Our episode highlights
4. Where can you watch and listen
5. Next week

Subscribe now

About the business

Ferrero began as a small confectioner in Alba, Italy, in 1946. Today, it is one of the world’s largest sweet-packaged food companies, with more than 35 iconic brands, including Nutella, Kinder, Tic Tac, and Ferrero Rocher, available in over 170 countries. With more than 47,000 employees worldwide, Ferrero continues to blend Italian heritage with global expansion.

“So, needless to say, we have many delicious treats within our portfolio. And we're continuing to expand. In the past year, we've entered into the Better For You space with our acquisition of Power Crunch, and there's more on the horizon. So there's so much opportunity. It's such an amazing organization to work for.”

The company’s portfolio combines European legacy brands with American “local jewels” acquired through strategic growth, from Butterfinger and Baby Ruth to Keebler and Famous Amos.

About the guest

After more than 15 years in the agency world, Danielle moved client-side to experience brand building from within. Today, as SVP of Media & Marketing Services at Ferrero, she leads integrated marketing and media strategies across the U.S. and Canada, driving consumer awareness, engagement, and digital transformation.

“Well, after over 15 years in the agency space, spending a lot of time as a strategic leader and consultant to clients, it was really exciting to move over onto the client side, the manufacturing side, and get inside an organization and see how it operates from the inside out.

Her leadership style is rooted in developing strong, high-performing teams and fostering diverse perspectives. Recognized as an AdWeek 2023 Media All-Star, Danielle has been part of organizations awarded by AdAge, Cannes Lions, Effie, and AdWeek. Beyond accolades, she is deeply committed to mentoring the next generation of leaders and believes the best ideas can come from anywhere, and you have to follow your own pace.

Our Episode Highlights

Here are four key takeaways from our conversation with Danielle:

1. Digital Transformation: For Ferrero, digital transformation means using data and insights to get closer to consumers and customers, enabling personalized messaging and empowering teams with automation and AI, focusing on asking the right questions over just mining data.

2. From Search to Brand Building: Ferrero's retail media journey began with search, driving digital penetration and online visibility. As retailer offerings expanded, Ferrero evolved to full-funnel activations, including social commerce, video, and programmatic. Most exciting is the overlay of valuable retailer audiences onto national media, driving both omni-channel sales and upper-funnel metrics like brand awareness and consideration.

3. Future of Retail Media: Danielle highlights audience syndication as a key area, enabling the leverage of retailer audiences off-site in mass media channels. The expansion of self-service options is vital for better orchestrating national and retail media. This integration aims to avoid audience duplication, manage overall frequency, and create a better, more valuable consumer experience, ultimately driving brand differentiation and purchase intent.

4. Nonlinear Career: She has worked across diverse categories, including CPG, technology, QSR, and entertainment. Each move was motivated by the potential for learning and building an “encyclopedia of knowledge.” Her advice: run your own pace and value learning what you don’t enjoy as much as what you do.

This is an episode in partnership with GroceryShop. Paula and Danielle will be in Las Vegas this September, sharing more insights on the future of Grocery and CPG.

If you want to join the best business leaders, get your tickets here!

Where can you watch and listen

Find the full conversation and valuable insights on our YouTube channel, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. Choose your favorite podcast provider below:

1. YouTube:

2. Spotify:

3. Apple Podcasts:

More OFFBounds episodes in partnership with Groceryshop, and about Retail Media:
🇺🇸086. From GLP-1s to Gut Health: Inside Danone’s Consumer-First Strategy
🇨🇦0.82 Transforming Canada’s Largest Grocer into a Digital Powerhouse
🇩🇪061. Retail Media Revolution: Insights from Rewe Group’s Christian Raveaux

Next Week

On Tuesday, September 30th, 7:00 AM GMT, our host, Paula Macaggi, welcomes Matt Marcotte, for the launch of his Book “Built on Belief”!

Also, next week on October 2 nd, we’ll launch our series “Retail Intelligence in Action” in partnership with Ometria, presented by Retail icon Ron Thurston and amazing guests.

Great things are coming! Follow us to stay ahead in the retail world; all our social links and podcast platforms are right here.

From California, we bring you a conversation with Azita Martin, Vice President & General Manager of AI for Retail, CPG & QSR at NVIDIA. At the center of the world’s most valuable company’s retail initiatives, Azita is helping shape how artificial intelligence will power the future of shopping, from supply chains to the store floor.

She shares her perspective on the next frontier of AI: how e-commerce is being reinvented with intelligent search and shopping assistants, why supply chain optimization is becoming the ultimate battleground, and what “Physical AI” could mean for retail by 2026. Along the way, she brings real-world examples, offering a clear picture of how innovation is moving from vision to execution.

In this edition:
1. About the business
2. About the guest
3. Our episode highlights
4. Where can you watch and listen
5. Next week

Subscribe now

About the business

Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem, NVIDIA began with the ambition of bringing 3D graphics to gaming and multimedia. Just a few years later, the company invented the GPU, sparking a technological shift that would redefine computing as we know it.

“I joined Nvidia about seven years ago, and people said, “You're the gaming company”. And at the time, seven years ago, I was in the machine learning space. And I said, “This AI stuff is going to take off, and I know who's going to be leading it, it's going to be Nvidia.”

Three decades on, NVIDIA stands at the center of the AI revolution. Its accelerated computing platforms now extend across 19 industries, from robotics and smart cities to healthcare, retail, CPG, and quick service restaurants. In retail specifically, the company is building a future around intelligent supply chains, intelligent stores, and seamless omnichannel experiences.

The scale of adoption is remarkable: according to NVIDIA’s 2025 “State of AI in Retail” survey, 89% of retail and CPG executives are already deploying or testing AI projects (up from 82% in 2023), and 87% report a direct positive impact on revenue.

About the guest

With more than 30 years of experience in technology and business leadership, Azita Martin has dedicated her career to helping organizations deploy innovation. Over the past seven years at NVIDIA, she has led the company’s AI strategy for retail and CPG, guiding global brands on how to adopt high-impact AI solutions while developing the company’s retail solution stack and partner ecosystem.

“I think the key thing is that you always have to be learning. I've always kind of had this interest in like, what's new in technology? I think in many ways, I've been reading more stuff around technology versus reading magazines for fun.”

Before joining NVIDIA, Azita served as Chief Marketing Officer at several startups and held leadership roles in product marketing at Salesforce, Siebel, and Silicon Graphics. She began her career as a Senior Consultant, later earning a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering and an MBA from the University of Southern California.

Our Episode Highlights

Here are four key takeaways from our conversation with Azita:

1. AI Shopping Assistants & E-commerce: Artificial intelligence is transforming e-commerce, replacing traditional search with AI shopping assistants. These tools personalize recommendations and optimize the shopping experience, redefining how consumers find and acquire products online.

2. Computer Vision & Digital Twins in Retail: Computer vision is crucial for loss prevention in retail and for optimizing checkout. Digital twins of stores and products allow for simulating configurations and planograms, enabling data-driven decisions for store layouts and product placement.

3. Physical AI: The Future of Interaction: Physical AI, combining digital twins, computer vision, robotics, and generative AI, will be the main theme for 2026. This AI understands physics and interacts with the physical world, promising transformative advancements in supply chain, manufacturing, and distribution.

4. Agentic AI & Supply Chain Optimization: Agentic AI, with multiple autonomous agents working together, will revolutionize supply chain management. These agents perceive, reason, plan, and execute tasks independently, making processes like inventory management and order fulfillment more efficient.

Where can you watch and listen

Find the full conversation and valuable insights on our YouTube channel, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. Choose your favorite podcast provider below:

1. YouTube:

2. Spotify:

3. Apple Podcasts:

More OFFBounds episodes with AI in its core:
🇨🇦023. Embracing Challenges and AI as Competitive Advantage with Aldo’s CIO
🇺🇸072. Navigating Digital Transformation at Scale – Insights from Catalyst Brands
🇺🇸073. You Don’t Need an AI Strategy, You Need a Business Strategy That Uses AI
🇨🇳078. How DingDong Fresh Is Reinventing Grocery Retail with AI at the Core

Next Week

On Tuesday, September 23rd, 7:00 AM GMT, our host, Paula Macaggi, will join Danielle Sporkin, SVP of Media and Marketing Services at Ferrero.

Also, on October 2 nd, we’ll launch our series “Retail Intelligence in Action” in partnership with Ometria, presented by Retail icon Ron Thurston and amazing guests.

Great things are coming! Follow us to stay ahead in the retail world; all our social links and podcast platforms are right here.

Another episode recorded in New York in partnership with Groceryshop, this time featuring Linda Bethea, Chief Marketing Officer at Danone North America. Linda discusses how the company is adapting to major shifts in consumer behavior, with 1 in 4 Americans currently on a weight loss journey.

She shares how Danone is navigating the rise of GLP-1 drugs and the wellness boom in the U.S., unveiling new products to support this movement, cultural activations from influencers to Coachella, and her own leadership framework, the “4 C’s.”

In this edition:
1. About the business
2. About the guest
3. Our episode highlights
4. Where can you watch and listen
5. Next week

Subscribe now

About the business

Danone is a global food and beverage leader and the largest B Corporation in the world. Founded in Barcelona in 1919 and later established in France, the company is now headquartered in Paris. With nearly 90,000 employees and products sold in over 120 markets, Danone generated approximately €27.4 billion in sales in 2024 across its three fast-growing categories: Essential Dairy & Plant-Based, Waters, and Specialized Nutrition.

Its portfolio includes 146 international brands, alongside strong local and regional labels. The U.S. is Danone’s largest business unit, home to household names such as Silk, Horizon, Activia, Oikos, and Evian. In the interview, Linda noted that “health and wellness are at a tipping point” in America. As consumers rethink their diets and eat less overall, Danone is responding with innovation, from new product lines to a dedicated online hub designed to guide people on their GLP-1 journey.

About the guest

Linda Bethea’s career includes leadership roles at eBay Enterprise, Mondelēz, PepsiCo, and Diageo before she joined Danone in 2020. Since then, she has advanced from Head of Marketing to Chief Marketing Officer for North America, where she directs brand strategy, media, creative, design, and shopper marketing for more than 20 brands, among them Silk, OIKOS, Activia, Too Good & Co, and SToK.

Recognized by Forbes as a Top 50 Entrepreneurial CMO, Linda is an award-winning leader with a track record of driving growth across categories, some highlights include revitalizing Lay’s to expanding Aquafina with LifeWtr and bubly. To her, the CMO role is about more than campaigns: it’s about building brands for long-term growth, using data and design to anticipate what consumers will want next.

Our Episode Highlights

Here are four key takeaways from our conversation with Linda:

1. Innovative Products: Danone invests on products like Oikos Fusion, a first-of-its-kind cultured dairy drink, supports GLP-1 consumers by preserving muscle while meeting weight loss goals.

2. Access & Education: As it adapts to these shifts, Danone meets consumers where they are with science-backed solutions, from a GLP-1 nutrition hub to direct-to-consumer formula options.

3. Cultural Relevance: From Coachella activations to influencer coffee content, Danone bridges Gen Z’s social-first world and mindset , while targeting older demographics in search of dependable, nutritious basics.

4. Leadership Framework: Linda shares her framework for leadership, the 4 C’s, Curiosity, Courage, Conviction, Compassion. It shape teams to thrive in today’s dynamic environment, she also highlights some advices for someone who wants to become a CMO.

This is an episode in partnership with GroceryShop. Paula and Linda will be in Las Vegas this September, sharing more insights on the future of Grocery and CPG.

If you want to join the best business leaders, get your tickets here!

Where can you watch and listen

Find the full conversation and valuable insights on our YouTube channel, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. Choose your favorite podcast provider below:

1. YouTube:

2. Spotify:

3. Apple Podcasts:

More OFFBounds episodes in partnership with Groceryshop and CPG theme:
🇨🇦082. The Surprising Story Behind Loblaws' Digital Revolution
🇺🇸074. Tony’s Chocolonely and the Future of Conscious Retail
🇪🇺024. How PepsiCo is Growing its Ecommerce Business in Europe

Next Week

On Tuesday, September 16th, 7:00 AM GMT, our host, Paula Macaggi, will join Azita Martin, Vice President and GM of AI for Retail, CPG and QSR, at NVIDIA!

Don’t miss it! Follow us to stay ahead in the retail world; all our social links and podcast platforms are right here.

From Atlanta, we bring you a new episode from our partnership with Shoptalk Fall featuring Jenna Bromberg, Chief Marketing Officer at Papa Johns. Her mission? To bring creativity and marketing success to an iconic 40-year pizza brand.

Jenna shares insights from her professional journey, from Pizza Hut, Hilton, Carter’s, and now Papa Johns. She also explains how data, loyalty, and reading the Zeitgeist are redefining pizza marketing.

In this edition:
1. About the business
2. About the guest
3. Our episode highlights
4. Where can you watch and listen
5. Next week

Subscribe now

About the business

Founded in 1984 in Jeffersonville, IN, Papa Johns has expanded from its first store to more than 6,000 restaurants across 50 countries and territories. Today, it ranks as the world’s third-largest pizza chain, operating co-headquarters in Atlanta and Louisville, and guided by a core philosophy: “Better ingredients, better pizza.”

Rituals and family moments play a central role in building brand love, as the company goes beyond pizza by being part of life’s most meaningful occasions, from family gatherings to celebrations. Its culture is also anchored in principles such as “Have Fun,” “Quality Above All,” and “Innovate to Win”.

About the guest

Jenna Bromberg brings extensive expertise covering brand strategy, creative execution, and social and digital platforms. She started her career in Pizza marketing at Pizza Hut, transitioning from Associate Manager on Social Media to Director, before assuming leadership roles at Hilton and Carters. In November 2024, she stepped into her current role as Chief Marketing Officer at Papa Johns, continuing her love for delivering the best experience with pizza experiences.

Beyond her executive role, Jenna is known for staying close to consumer behavior in ways that go beyond traditional research. She even built a TikTok For You Page that mirrors her audience’s feed, a practice that fuels bold cultural activations like garlic butter bath bombs and pepperoncini dirty soda kits. Guided by her principle, “Your attitude determines your altitude”, she blends creativity with performance, keeping Papa Johns culturally relevant while inspiring her team.

Our Episode Highlights

Here are four key takeaways from our conversation with Jenna:

1. Data-Driven Personalization: Papa Johns uses customer data like a retailer to predict orders, personalize offers, and boost loyalty through Papa Rewards. "Papa Dough" gives members spending freedom, moving beyond simple coupons.

2. Creative Cultural Campaigns: Instead of celebrity endorsements, Bromberg's creativity shines through unexpected cultural stunts like garlic butter bath bombs. These lighthearted ideas create buzz and relevance by listening to consumers.

3. Leadership Mindset: Bromberg's leadership is guided by the philosophy "Your attitude determines your altitude," helping her and her team navigate challenges and stay current with culture and consumers.

4. Balancing Creativity and Performance: Bromberg shows how resilience and curiosity, by exploring trends and AI, can transform a classic pizza brand into a modern marketing powerhouse, and also watching their audience production, especially on TikTok.

This episode is brought to you in partnership with Shoptalk Fall! Paula and Jenna will be in Chicago this September, joining brands like Papa Johns, The Home Depot, and David’s Bridal to share more insights on the future of retail.

If you want to join the best business leaders, get your tickets here!

Where can you watch and listen

Find the full conversation and valuable insights on our YouTube channel, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. Choose your favorite podcast provider below:

1. YouTube:

2. Spotify:

3. Apple Podcasts:

More OFFBounds episodes in partnership with Shoptalk Fall:
🇺🇸035. Vera Bradley's AMAZING Rebranding Story
🇺🇸036. Lab-Grown Diamonds And The Future of Pandora
🇺🇸037. Inside Build-A-Bear’s Technology: Interview with CTO Dara Meath
🇺🇸038. How AI is Transforming ThredUp's Operations, Interview with CEO
🇺🇸039. Design with Purpose: How Crate & Barrel Is Shaping Modern Retail
🇺🇸040. True Religion's Strategy to Become a Billion-Dollar Brand

Next Week

On Tuesday, September 9th, 7:00 AM GMT, our host, Paula Macaggi, will join Linda Bethea, Chief Marketing Officer, North America at Danone! One more episode in partnership with Groceryshop.

Don’t miss it! Follow us to stay ahead in the retail world; all our social links and podcast platforms are right here.