Ikea has set its sights on the U.S. in a new way: While the company has 52 retail locations in the country, it’s investing $2.2 billion to add more U.S. stores, expand its omnichannel options, and improve the customer experience for American shoppers. Speaking at the Home Delivery World conference in Philadelphia on Wednesday, Ikea’s...
In 2015, Arlan Hamilton was on food stamps and sleeping on the floor of the San Francisco airport with nothing but an old laptop and a dream of breaking into the venture capital business. She had no contacts or network in Silicon Valley, no background in finance — not even a college degree. What Hamilton...
Our upcoming Virtual Workshop on July 10 isn’t your average “here’s how to be a better leader” session. We’re bringing you executive leadership coach Lesli Rotenberg, who founded Unlock Inspiration after a 30-year career in media and whose mission is to help leaders sharpen their visions, navigate change, and make smarter decisions so they can...
Most companies today are embracing a hybrid work set up, which can bring challenges to employees hoping to move up the corporate ladder. For starters, they no longer have access to the traditional opportunities for career advancement — such as networking, mentorship and visibility — which come in a full-time physical office. Women in Retail...
How do we build belonging at work? Feeling like we are connected, supported and respected is a basic human need, and that doesn’t disappear once we walk through the (perhaps virtual) doors of the office. Women in Retail Leadership Circle (WIRLC) knows that today’s leaders are grappling with this challenge. To provide some answers, we’re...
Transformational leadership — leadership that encourages, inspires and motivates employees to perform in ways that create meaningful change — is practiced at Signet Jewelers by everyone from its CEO Gina Drosos to its district managers. In a panel moderated by Stacey Widlitz of SW Retail Advisors at the recent Women in Retail Leadership Summit in...
I know what it’s like to defy the odds to set up my business in a male-dominated industry. Having fled my homeland of Ukraine following the Russian invasion in spring 2022, I relocated to Riga, Latvia and immediately established FYST to solve the challenges facing e-commerce businesses in accessing global payment methods. Building a brand...
We live in a disconnected age of overload — a challenge for even the most seasoned of leaders. We communicate in 2D with the people we need to influence the most — where subtleties of expression and emotion get lost. We’re inundated with information, consuming 40 times more information than we did in the 1940s...
More than 80 percent of shoppers will expect hyper-curated in-store shopping experiences created just for them that simplify choice and flexibility by 2030. This was a key finding from the recently published Future of Shopping study from Synchrony a consumer financial services company and Women in Retail Leadership Circle partner. While providing a range of...
Brieane Olson, a Women in Retail Leadership Circle (WIRLC) board member, was named the sole CEO of the California-inspired lifestyle brand PacSun earlier this month, assuming the position that was previously assigned as a dual role between herself and co-CEO Mike Relich. Olson was appointed to the co-CEO role in March after previously serving as...