FEATURED SPEAKERS
BROOKE CORTE - HOST
Host - Money News on radio
3AW, 2GB, 4BC & 2CC
The 2021 ARA Leaders Forum is presented by Brooke Corte, a respected business journalist with nearly 20 years' experience in the media and a passion for Australia’s retail business community. She is the host of the nightly Money News program on Nine's radio stations 3AW, 2GB, 4BC, as well as a regular contributor for Nine News.
PAUL ZAHRA
Chief Executive Officer
Australian Retailers Association
Paul Zahra is a CEO, Non Executive Director, Board and Company Advisor and one of Australia’s most influential diversity advocates. A leading force in the Australian Retail Industry for over 35 years, Paul’s corporate roles have included Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Australia’s premium department store, David Jones Limited as well as senior leadership roles at Target Australia and Officeworks Superstores. Paul advises Boards and Companies in areas including retail (both traditional and startups), leadership, transformational change and diversity.
President & CEO
Matthew Shay is president and CEO of the National Retail Federation, the world’s largest retail trade association. He serves as chief advocate and spokesman for the nation’s largest private-sector industry employer, responsible for supporting one in four U.S. jobs – 52 million working Americans – and generating $3.9 trillion in annual GDP. Since his arrival in 2010, Shay has transformed NRF into Washington’s most powerful voice supporting the retail industry.
Chief Executive Officer
Brand Collective is one of Australia’s leading houses of apparel and footwear brands including; Superdry, Shoes & Sox, Clarks, Hush Puppies & Volley. Servicing over 500 wholesale customers, operating 130+ standalone retail stores and with over 20 direct digital routes to market, Brand Collective is a fully integrated business managing all facets of brand development from product development and sourcing through to omni channel distribution and marketing.
SARAH HUNTER
Managing Director
Sarah was appointed Managing Director or Officeworks in January 2019. Prior to joining Officeworks, Sarah worked across many areas of the Coles Group in positions including Financial Controller, State General Manager Victoria, General Manager Workplace Strategy and most recently Demerger Program Director, overseeing Coles’ implementation of the proposed demerger from Wesfarmers. Before joining Coles, Sarah worked in the United Kingdom for more than 10 years, holding a number of senior commercial positions in banking and airports including Strategy and Finance Director for Gatwick Airport from 2004 to 2006.
Managing Director
Ian was appointed Managing Director, Kmart Australia in February 2016 and assumed the responsibility for leading the Kmart Group division (encompassing the Kmart Australia, Target Australia and Catch Group businesses) in November 2018. Prior to this, Ian was Kmart’s Chief Operating Officer where he was instrumental in Kmart’s turnaround. Ian’s experience, both national and international, covers a number of industries including retail, professional services, consulting, technology and healthcare in positions that include general management, sales, business development and project management.
Richard is a Chartered Accountant with over 25 years’ experience in retail and finance. Mr Murray joined JB Hi-Fi as CFO in 2003 and took the business through the IPO process. After completing his degree at Melbourne University, Richard started his career at Deloitte as a cadet in the Audit division and progressed to the Corporate Finance group. Whilst at Deloitte, he worked with JB Hi-Fi management while preparing for the float and when the then CFO left the business, he accepted the position. Richard was appointed to the Board of JB Hi-Fi in June 2012 and became CEO on 1 July 2014.
DR JANA BOWDEN
Associate Professor Marketing
Jana Bowden is an Associate Professor of Marketing and Chair of Ethics at the Macquarie University Business School. Passionate about supporting the retail community, Jana is a consumer behaviour researcher, practitioner and media commentator with 20 years of experience. Jana is regarded as one of the world leading experts on consumer brand engagement. Her seminal research focuses on how consumers become engaged and disengaged with brands. In 2020 Stanford University named Jana as a member of the top 2% of global marketing researchers.
QUT Business School
Chief Executive Officer
Andersens
Rowan is a retail leader with over 25 years of leadership experience in the franchise sector. He has held senior leadership roles in iconic brands, Sheraton, Westfield, Domino’s, Quest Serviced Apartments, and Battery World. Since 2019, he has been the CEO of Andersens, a retail flooring specialist with 50 stores headquartered in the Queensland country town of Gatton. In his brief time with Andersens, Rowan has presided over a 30% growth in revenues, and has brought about innovations including an online rug store and an Augmented Reality platform to enable customers to simulate flooring in their homes, the first of its kind in the retail sector in Australia.
ERICA BERCHTOLD
Chief Executive Officer
The Iconic
Erica Berchtold, Chief Executive Officer of THE ICONIC, is a passionate, energetic and highly-driven female business leader. With an exceptional record and ability of building, leading and motivating the teams she leads to higher performance and achieving outstanding results. Prior to joining THE ICONIC, Erica held the position of Managing Director of the Sports Division (Rebel, AMART Sports, Infinite Retail and Goldcross Cycles) at Super Retail Group for over seven years.
Chief Executive Officer
Paul has led TBWA – ‘The Disruption® Company’ across Australia & New Zealand for the last 15 years, with creative agencies in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Auckland and Wellington. The Group includes the global creative collective TBWA, Eleven PR, Fleishman Hillard, Fabric and Digital Arts Network. Major clients include apple, Amazon, ANZ Bank, Mastercard, Tourism New Zealand, The Hanes Group and CUB. Along the way the agency has won recognition including the Australian Effie Effectiveness Agency of the Year, AdNews Network of the Year (twice) and the Cannes Grand Prix. Paul also sits on the board for the Advertising Council of Australia.
Director, Industries
Microsoft Australia
Sonia is the Director of Retail and Commercial Enterprise at Microsoft Australia. She is responsible for leading teams of strategists, technology and industry experts who actively work with organisations to help drive their business transformation agenda leveraging digital capabilities to innovate and grow.
OLIVER FREEDMAN
Managing Director
RepTrak
RepTrak is a market leading global consumer data and insights business, which has tracked the reputation of retail brands for over two decades. A passionate brand expert, Oliver established RepTrak’s presence in Australia in 2017 and has used the business to create a conversational bridge between Australian consumers and the businesses that serve them. Prior to that, he was Managing Director of AMR, one of Australia’s leading Market Research companies and also worked for Harris Interactive in the US.
Principal
Hitch Advisory
Drawing on more than 10 years experience within retail legal and leasing, Olivia Hitchens advises Australia’s largest retailers, franchised networks, celebrities and high-net-worth families and is a renowned expert in Retail and Branding Law. Olivia is the exclusive legal advisor to the Australian Retailers Association and its members.
Chief Executive Officer
Scott Fyfe is the CEO of David Jones, Australia’s iconic 183-year-old department store. David Jones has 47 stores across Australia and New Zealand, as well as a fast-growing online channel. Scott’s leadership of David Jones follows a four-year tenure as CEO of Country Road Group, throughout which he led the Group’s transformation into a successful omnichannel retailer and delivered market-leading online growth. Scott previously held numerous leadership positions at Marks & Spencer in the UK over two decades, in roles spanning buying, merchandising and sourcing.
LEANNE LANG
Head of Human Resources
Leanne has devoted over 16 years of her career to Human Resources both in Perth and Sydney, currently as Head of HR for Heinemann Australia; a global key player in the travel retail industry. Prior to Heinemann, Leanne held HR leadership positions in industries such as Retail, FMCG, Logistics, and Not-For-Profit, at companies such as Woolworths Group, Staples and Toll Group
Co-founder and Chairman
Carl Hartmann is a prominent Australian serial entrepreneur, having co-founded Compono, Lyre’s Non-Alcoholic Spirit Co, and Temando. He has led Lyre’s to being the world’s most awarded non-alcoholic spirit company. Recreating all major alcoholic spirits into non-alcoholic format and within its first year expanding into 40+ countries. As the Compono Chairman he is steering a fast growing HR technology company that solves the problem of finding, developing and retaining talent. Carl is an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship & Innovation at the University of Queensland, serves as a Non-Executive Director on several boards and has been recognised as an IBM Global Entrepreneur of the Year.
Managing Director
Brenton is the Co-founder and Managing Director of Radaro. Responsible for driving new initiatives and strategy, Brenton is integral to the company’s product roadmap and positioning, overseeing global market development and seeking out emerging sector opportunities. Radaro is an enterprise technology platform that streamlines and optimises ‘last-mile delivery’ of goods or services, transforming both the customer and business experience.
HILARY WATSON
Product Lead
Hilary is the product lead at Black.ai which provides leading-edge computer vision technology to understand physical environments and the complex interactions within them. She has a passion for innovation particularly emerging technologies having helped tech startups scale. Prior to discovering her passion for entrepreneurship she held management positions in banking and management consulting primarily focused on North America.
Head of Partnerships & Business Development
Joseph is the Head of Partnerships, Business Development, and Operations at Observa. He's served in many roles in retail and technology leadership, including driving PricewaterhouseCoopers' Microsoft Alliance through a launch partnership in the early years of Azure, resulting in the delivery of a SaaS compliance solution to several Fortune 500 clients in oil, pharmaceutical, real estate, and CPG.
ThinkUncommon
Gareth has spent most of his career in the retail industry. This has included stints with Australia’s largest retailer, Woolworths, and Australia’s largest telco, Telstra. In 2019 Gareth co-founded and became CEO of ThinkUncommon. ThinkUncommon helps retailers with the process of innovation. ThinkUncommon believes that there is plenty of advice and information available to retailers on what they should be doing to innovate but not enough on how to actually do it.
Industry Executive
Microsoft Australia
Marcella Larsen leads Microsoft’s Retail industry strategy in Australia, steering the local approach to customers, partnerships and the adoption of digital, cloud and AI capabilities to enable digital transformation in retail to materially drive top line growth, giving her unique insights into the addressing the pace of change in retail at scale.
Andrew's specialty is in solving problems, and leading transforming change. He has extensive experience over a number of roles in designing digital and physical customer journeys, frontline experiences, IT systems enhancements and transformation, channel capacity planning, retail strategy, store design and merchandising, sales planning, and customer experience.
Rachel is the former Global CEO of T2 and Executive Director of the Just Group. As a Non-Executive Director, Retail Strategist and Start Up Advisor, Rachel’s experience spans crisis management through to high growth environments, international expansion, joint ventures and strategic alliances. With a deep passion for the DNA of retailing, Rachel is fascinated by the accelerated pace of change and intense competition that is shaping the global retail landscape.
i=Change
Catherine Ross is the Chief Operations Officer of social enterprise tech start up i=Change. i=Change enables online retailers to give back with every purchase, connecting thefor-profit and not-for-profit worlds, and has raised over $3 million (and counting) just $1 at a time. At the helm of the innovative start-up, Catherine has directly created and managed exponential growth and worked with some of Australia’s most iconic brands to support their giving. A former board member for the Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health, Catherine’s focus is empowering women and fostering the movement of business for purpose.
The Australian
Eli Greenblat is a senior business reporter for The Australian, covering the length and breadth of the retail sector. From supermarkets and department stores to specialty shops, fashion, toys, apparel, consumer electronics, liquor and hardware, he is responsible for ‘all things’ retail when it comes to The Australian newspaper’s national coverage. His coverage includes the growing importance of online retail and the retail sector’s reaction to and performance through the COVID-19 pandemic. He has written for The Age, Sydney Morning Herald and Australian Financial Review covering a range of sectors across the economy and stockmarket.
Walk Free
Grace Forrest is a Founding Director of Walk Free, an international human rights organisation focused on the eradication of modern slavery in our lifetime. Since its inception in 2011, Walk Free has become one of world’s leading anti-slavery organisations. Grace is the youngest ever United Nations Association Goodwill Ambassador for Anti-Slavery.Grace currently sits on the Board of Directors for The Freedom Fund, the Board of Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, is a director of the Minderoo Foundation and a founding member of the Asia Gender Network. Most recently Grace was awarded the 2021 Young West Australian of the Year.
Woolworths Group