World Retail Congress Recap

Women2Watch conference Recap: World Retail Congress #WRC2019

5/26/2019

High Velocity at #WRC19

This year's theme at World Retail Congress was "high velocity retail." Retail has been speeding up for a long time, and now the barriers to entry are much lower for all. The Remodista Team spent a few days in Amsterdam, focused on retailer leaders who are winning around the world.

One of the opening discussions featured Judith McKenna, President and CEO of Walmart International who has overseen massive change since moving into this leadership role. Judith discussed their global expansion looking at India and China. There are clearly many reasons to be excited about the innovation they are bringing to the market through partnerships, such as Flipkart's payment app "PhoneFe".

Another one of our favorite talks was The African Retail Phoenix panel with Suzie Wokabi of Suziebeauty, Jessica Anuna of Klasha, and Melanie Hawken who spoke on the growth potential in Africa. Online retail will reach 74$ Billion by 2025, and the median age is 19-25. Bringing large companies to support women-owned companies, will bring a prosperous future to Africa's global development.

The African Retail Phoenix Panel

Kelly Stickel, founder and CEO of Remodista

Jennie Baik, founder and CEO of Orchardmile

Julie Mather, founder and CEO of Flora & Fauna

We were excited to have six W2W alumni and honorees speaking at the show. Michelle Grant, Head of Retailing at Euromonitor, interviewed Fernando Madeira, President of Ipsy, while Kelly Stickel, founder and CEO of Remodista gave a talk on retail and the internet of things, the next tech frontier.

Jennie Baik, founder and CEO of Orchardmile, and one of our Women2Watch, joined a panel with Alexandra Waldman, Molly Howard, talking about brands that democratize fashion.

Julie Mathers, founder and CEO of Flora & Fauna joined a discussion on sustainability and she shared some of the solutions they have implemented and have been cost effective.

Melissa Gonzalez, founder and CEO of Lionesque Group spoke on a panel with leaders from Adidas and FutureBrand UXUS on successful pop-up strategies. Stacey Widlitz and Melissa spent some time recording podcasts with other fabulous leaders at the show. #WRC2019 #W2W19