Retail & Digital Retreat 2022 Speaker Line up
Geoff Ramm
Founder of Celebrity Service and OMG Marketing, Customer Experience Expert, Author, Keynote Speaker.
Geoff Ramm, the creator and author of Celebrity Service and OMG Marketing, knows that great customer service leads to lucrative, repeat business but a greater experience leads to global recognition. So how can you design a customer experience that has you talked about for decades to come?
Geoff knows the Jedi Mind Trick to make you craved by your customers, envied by your competitors and raved about in your industry. In his interactive keynotes, you will not only discover out-of-this-world ideas, but will come up with exciting ideas to light up your business and excite your customers.
He’s challenged and inspired entrepreneurs, companies and organisations across six continents to create award winning ideas to outperform the competition. Oh and his on-stage and on-screen presence as well as his infectious enthusiasm and humour, will have you on the edge of your seats.
Lara Curry
Creative Director and Brand Consultant of Long Tall Sally, Anthropologie, Hobbs, & Ralph Lauren
Lara is Passionate about working with brands of all shapes and sizes to help them realise their true potential, and to create the very best brand experience across all visual touchpoints of their business — from bricks & mortar, to online to social media — so all is connected as a brand experience.
Every creative decision is considered within the commercial needs and parameters of a business, and all come together to articulate the brand story. Sustainability, resourcefulness, and a considered approach is key to an inspired and engaging modern approach to a brand experience.
The breadth of Lara’s work in branding includes: Visual Merchandising, Store Design, Display, Presenting and Journalism, TV Presenting, Rebranding, Styling and Art Direction of Photo Shoots, Travel Reviews, PR, Marketing, Web Design, Social Media management and Content Creation.
James Gold
Co-Founder Skinnydip, London
James Gold is one of the co-founders of the multimillion-pound retail chain Skinnydip London. James is a passionate, driven and reactive businessman with first-hand experience of the pressures of managing such a popular brand.
James started studying law at Birmingham University, some may say a million miles away from founding a fashion retailer. With a family history in the clothing industry, James always had an interest in fashion and wanted to work in a creative industry. In 2011 Skinnydip was born out of a casual conversation that James had with his brother and best friend. They were discussing the release of the new iPhone and how there was very little to customise the phone. It was evident that there was a gap in the market for making technology fashion and so Skinnydip was born.
A key concept of the Skinnydip brand is niche products and reacting quickly to emerging trends within the market. With this key concept, James has quickly become familiar with the pressures of a fast-moving industry and staying up to date with consumer needs and behaviour.
Marie Gleeson
Former Irish Navy Ships Captain & Motivational Speaker
Marie Gleeson honed her leadership style over the course of a twenty year military career operating primarily in the harsh and hostile Atlantic Ocean. Her journey from naval cadet to Captain of the LE AOIFE has given her unique insight into people and how to maximise performance even in the most challenging of circumstances. She has experienced the highs of international drug busts to the tragedy of the loss of a colleague overboard at sea.
Marie was one of the first female officers in the Irish navy and this gives her a unique insight into the reality of leading in a “mans” world. Marie is an honest and engaging speaker who brings her experience to life in her keynotes. She discusses the reality of decision making in high pressure and time critical operational environments and translates this into key leadership lessons for the business world.
The cornerstone of a military career is that service comes before self and this was the reality for Marie in her career until life threw a curveball of magnitude in her path. Marie’s personal story highlights the importance of support and resilience in the face of adversity.
Karl Henry
Ireland’s most Recognised, Leading personal Trainer
Karl Henry is one of Ireland’s most recognised and leading personal trainers and is the name that is synonymous with health and training in Ireland. Karl has a BSc (hons) in Sports Science and Sports Management from University College Dublin, as well as two personal training qualifications: A.C.E and A.A.B.S.
He founded Karl Henry Personal Training in 2004 and has worked on over 30,000 sessions to date. We have been training clients via FaceTime and Zoom since 2019 and work with clients around the world to get the best results that last.
Karl is the leading fitness expert on RTE 1’s Operation Transformation and has been working with RTE since the show started 14 years ago. He writes weekly health columns is in The Irish Independent as well as publications around Ireland.
Jocelyn Thurlow
Senior Marketing Planning & Research Manager at Boohoo
Jocelyn has Focused on leading the promotional planning process, the campaign planning process and the customer research programme for boohoo.com for almost 8 years.
Over that time, she has been responsible for the setting the plan with cross-functional stakeholders, getting sign off at CEO/director level and communicating to the rest of the business.
She is also considered ‘the expert on’ the international key dates and holidays ensuring they are reflected in the promotional planning calendar, aswell as implementing a new campaign planning process including the introduction of brief and review stages together with clear critical paths.
Jocelyn is the go-to person on all campaign and promotional activity for colleagues at all levels at Boohoo and is responsible for holding and maintaining the top-line marketing plan to ensure consistency in communications cross-channel and across all territories.
Matthew Brown
Retail Trend Futurist & Keynote Speaker
Matthew is the owner and founder of Echochamber; a London based creative retail trend intelligence agency with a global reach.
For more than 20 years, Matthew has traveled the world, camera in hand, visiting and photographing stores in every sector. Echochamber tracks global retail trends, feeding clients with best practice in customer experience, store design, consumer trends and innovative technology, in order to help them ‘future proof’ their businesses.
Echochamber services include keynote speaking, retail safaris, creative trend consulting and global best practice benchmarking in the form of workshops and reports. As a regular keynote ‘Retail Futurist’ at conferences around the world, Matthew shows how the retail world is evolving faster than ever, in presentations that are inspiring, highly visual and entertaining.
Sonya Lennon
Skilled MC, designer, businesswoman and multi-award-winning social entrepreneur.
A seasoned speaker with clients including Google, Accenture, Citi, AIB, Eversheds, UKTI, Irish Life and Dublin Chamber, designer and entrepreneur Sonya Lennon is a tiny bundle of fearless passion who loves to tell a good yarn. All her experience is woven into story of style, creation and starting from scratch to build value.
Sonya has three decades as a prominent fashion stylist, broadcaster, designer, businesswoman and social entrepreneur. A fervent supporter of Irish Design, she has produced award winning fashion films supporting Irish fashion design and has twice been elected onto the Board of the Design & Crafts Council of Ireland and sat on the Advisory Board for Ireland’s Year of Design 2015.
In 2015, Lennon Courtney launched an exclusive range under license for Dunnes Stores. Now three seasons in, the range has been a sell our success as part of Dunnes Stores stable of irish design.
