Ian Jindal

Leadership and transformation in multichannel retail and eCommerce

RetailX Nexus – launch of our retail ‘think tank’

RetailX Nexus launches, with the mission of bringing ecommerce and multichannel leaders face-to-face once more

RetailX marks its return to face-to-face events with the launch of the first RetailX Nexus event, to be held this autumn.


Before the Covid-19 pandemic, RetailX was known for its in-person events, from roundtables and private dinners to think tank meetings. Now the company, an InternetRetailing sister company, is unveiling a landmark return to face-to-face, supplementing the digital events that have become commonplace during the pandemic.

Mark Pigou, co-founder of RetailX, says: “We have weathered a tsunami of ‘pivoting to digital’ over the past 18 months and we have learnt that whilst digital can provide an effective and engaging channel to deliver content, it cannot replace the clear advantages and benefits of face to face events.

“You cannot sit in front of a screen all day and you cannot have the kind of meaningful conversations and interaction that leads to real business benefits that live in person delivers. Digital will always have its place at the table but it simply cannot replace live events nor can it deliver comparable experiences and results.”

The new RetailX Nexus event, to be held on October 7, rethinks the in-person event for a post-Covid audience. It will focus on the three key strategic priorities that are now moving quickly up the board agendas at ecommerce and multichannel retail businesses: sustainability, diversity, equity and inclusion, and customer intelligence – about how automated technologies including machine-learning and AI will transform the retail customer experience.


Numbers will be limited to 100 senior retailers for an event that will run under strict Chatham House rules, thus giving participants the chance to think aloud in discussions, sharing experiences while learning from what others share.

Ian Jindal, chief executive and co-founder of RetailX, says: “The Nexus event is about taking back the space to think strategically. In this event we will relish the debate, the silent moment to reflect and question, and a safe space to change your mind. It’s for a corpus of leaders who can take the many ideas that this event will offer and coalesce into action.

“Senior leaders don’t need to debate simple issues, so we’ve focused upon the central questions that are currently affecting, engaging and testing the whole organisation and have a real impact that’s being felt both by customers and colleagues.”

RETHINKING FACE-TO-FACE

The event, to be held at Etc. Venues in London between 8.30am and 3.30pm, with after party networking from 3.35pm onwards, has been designed in close collaboration with an 18-member RetailX advisory panel that includes senior retailers and industry figures including Sienne Veit, group digital product and platform director at Kingfisher, David Kohn, customer and ecommerce director at Heals, Georgina Stoaling, head of ecommerce at Superdrug, Simon Forster, former CEO at Selfridges, Jennifer Roebuck, chief customer officer at Ted Baker, Robin Philips, chief executive and founder of The WatchShop Group and Donna Chen, marketing and digital director at House of Benney,.

RetailX content strategy and event event development director Anthony Parker says: “When we went out to speak to our advisory board and others, the response, after 18 months of Covid, was to say, ‘Just let us speak with each other. There’s so much that you can learn from conversations.’

“That’s very important to the structure of the event. After each of our central sessions there’ll be a 45-minute table discussion guided by a member of our advisory board. It’s a way of translating what’s up on the stage to a discussion among 10 retail leaders – from chief executives to company founders and directors – about what that means to their businesses.”

Organisers of RetailX Nexus are contacting initial participants now, via the RetailX research team. If you’d like to nominate someone to be one of the 100 participants then please visit the RetailX Nexus website for more information, and register your interest here.


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