50 Essential Thought Leaders in Retail Leadership in the USA (2026)

Last updated: June 2026

As of June 2026, the 50 thought leaders in this directory represent the most credible, active, and practically valuable voices shaping retail leadership in the United States. If you lead retail teams, develop store managers, or make decisions about people strategy inside an American retail business, these are the voices that deserve your attention.

Retail leadership in the United States sits at a genuinely demanding intersection. The National Retail Federation reports that retail supports more than 55 million American workers and contributes trillions of dollars to GDP, making it the nation's largest private-sector employer. Yet Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2026 Report found that global employee engagement declined for the second consecutive year in 2025, reaching its lowest level since 2020, with no region of the world improving. The implications for retail leaders responsible for frontline teams are direct and significant: engaged associates drive measurably better customer satisfaction and financial performance, and the investment in great retail leadership has never mattered more.

What makes American retail leadership particularly worth studying is the sheer scale and diversity of the challenge. From independent retailers in small markets to multi-thousand-location national chains, from luxury flagships in Manhattan to discount operations serving rural communities, the US retail landscape demands a breadth of leadership thinking that no single framework can fully address. The voices compiled here reflect that breadth. They include frontline advocates who have spent decades championing store-level leaders, strategy thinkers who connect people decisions to commercial outcomes, academics who bring research rigour to practical questions, and community builders who have created the spaces where retail leadership conversations happen.

I put together this directory to surface the people who genuinely deserve to be far better known inside every retail organisation in the country. Rather than recycling the same handful of names that appear on every list, the focus here is on practitioners, researchers, coaches, and community leaders who are actively contributing to how US retail thinks about its most important asset: the people who lead its teams.

If your retail leadership team needs facilitation, difficult conversations coaching, or working genius workshops to unlock how your team functions, book Jonno White at jonno@consultclarity.org. Whether virtual or face to face, Jonno works globally, and many organisations find that international travel is far more affordable than expected.

Why Retail Leadership in the USA Matters

Retail leadership is not simply management. It is the practice of developing human performance at scale, in an environment defined by constant pressure, high turnover, unpredictable customer volume, and razor-thin margins. McKinsey research identifies a lack of inspiring leadership as one of the top three reasons frontline retail employees leave their roles, and the downstream effects on customer experience and profitability are well documented. When frontline associates feel genuinely led, rather than merely supervised, the commercial outcomes shift in measurable ways.

The US retail sector faces this challenge at a moment of compounding disruption. Tariff uncertainty, the accelerating adoption of AI across store and back-office operations, workforce expectations that have shifted significantly in the post-pandemic period, and the ongoing pressure from ecommerce on physical retail formats have all converged to make retail leadership one of the most complex disciplines in business. The leaders on this list are grappling with these realities in real time, through their writing, speaking, research, and community-building work.

The most important insight is also the simplest: great retail leadership is the last remaining sustainable differentiator in an industry where products, prices, and technology can be replicated. What cannot be replicated is a culture of genuine accountability, development, and belonging, built by leaders who understand how to create it.

If your retail leadership team needs help building that kind of culture, engage Jonno White, Certified Working Genius Facilitator and author of Step Up or Step Out (10,000+ copies sold), at jonno@consultclarity.org.

How This List Was Compiled

This directory was compiled based on three criteria. First, active and current contribution to the retail leadership conversation in the United States through publishing, speaking, research, media appearances, or community leadership in 2025 or 2026. Second, a specific focus on the people and leadership dimensions of retail, including store culture, frontline development, team performance, accountability, and people strategy, rather than retail technology, analysis, or supply chain as primary areas. Third, a deliberate effort to surface voices across organisational types, seniority levels, and disciplines, from independent consultants and podcasters to Fortune 500 executives and university researchers. The list is organised into eight thematic categories reflecting different aspects of the retail leadership conversation.

Frontline Leadership and Store Culture

The frontline retail leadership category covers voices who centre their work on the people who work in stores: the store managers, district managers, and frontline associates whose daily decisions define the customer experience and the business outcome. These are the practitioners most directly focused on what great team leadership looks like at the operational level of American retail.

1. Ron Thurston

Few voices in American retail advocate for store-level leaders with as much consistency and genuine passion as Ron Thurston, Co-Founder of OSSY and author of two books on retail careers and human potential. His first book, Retail Pride: The Guide to Celebrating Your Accidental Career, became a rallying text for retail professionals who felt their career choice was undervalued. Published with Lioncrest Publishing, the book draws on his 30+ years of executive retail experience leading teams at Apple, Gap, West Elm, Bonobos, Tory Burch, and Saint Laurent.

Thurston's podcast Frontline Fridays continues to elevate the voices of store managers and retail associates whose perspectives rarely surface in industry media. His work challenges the assumption that retail careers are accidental or transitional, arguing instead that the skills developed on the retail floor represent some of the most sophisticated leadership education available anywhere. He is a 2026 NRF Retail Voice and a consistent presence at the industry's most important gatherings.

2. Steve Worthy

Steve Worthy, Founder of Worthy Retail Global and The Campus, has built one of the most distinctive communities in US retail leadership through his combination of a weekly podcast, a Substack newsletter, and the Retail Leadership Development Study, now in its second year. His 2025 study, downloaded more than 3,000 times, found that 43% of retail leaders identified keeping and developing top talent as their biggest challenge, and that more than 17% of respondents said their leadership training does not align with the real challenges they face.

Worthy's work is grounded in the gap between what retail leaders need and what most organisations provide. His Campus platform offers retail leaders a professional development space designed specifically for the demands of senior store leadership, including district managers and VP-level operators who often find themselves navigating growth alone. His podcast Retail Leadership with Steve Worthy is updated weekly and consistently surfaces the practical, unfiltered conversations that retail leadership practitioners need most.

3. Sandy Hernandez

Sandy Hernandez, Founder and CEO of The Retail Muse, brings a community-builder's perspective to retail leadership, with a focus on making the industry more inclusive, more inspiring, and more human. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, Hernandez has built a following by combining sharp retail commentary with a genuine commitment to surfacing voices that represent the full diversity of the American retail workforce.

Her LinkedIn content focuses on what great retail culture looks and feels like at the ground level, drawing on her background in retail operations and her ongoing work with retailers across multiple formats. The Retail Muse has become a destination for retail leaders who want perspective that goes beyond the financial and technological, centering instead on the human experience of working and leading inside retail organisations. She is an active participant in the Women in Retail community and a consistently generous voice for emerging retail leaders.

4. Crystal Vilkaitis

Crystal Vilkaitis, Founder of Crystal Media and host of the Rooted in Retail Podcast, has built one of the most active and practically focused resources for retail operators in the United States. Now in its 238th episode, her podcast connects independent and specialty retailers with the tools, strategies, and leadership thinking they need to compete and grow. Her work is grounded in 15+ years of helping retailers succeed through social media, digital marketing, and operational clarity.

What distinguishes Vilkaitis as a retail leadership voice is her consistent focus on the operational and human realities of running retail businesses, rather than the high-level strategy perspectives that dominate most retail media. Her audience of independent and specialty retailers includes exactly the leaders who are least well served by enterprise-focused retail commentary, and her work fills that gap with genuine expertise and community.

5. April Sabral

April Sabral, Founder of RetailU and AskApril.ai, is one of the most credentialed retail leadership development practitioners in North America. Her career trajectory from part-time sales associate at 17 to Senior Vice President overseeing 300 stores across three continents at brands including Apple, Starbucks, Gap, Armani Exchange, and DAVIDsTEA gives her work a grounding in direct operational experience that few leadership trainers can match.

Her book The Positive Effect and her subsequent Positive Accountability for Teams framework have been adopted by retail and hospitality organisations globally. In 2024, she launched the Positive Effect Certification, a train-the-trainer programme that has extended her leadership frameworks through a growing network of certified coaches and facilitators. Recognised as a NRF 2026 Big Show speaker and as one of RETHINK Retail's Top Retail Experts for three consecutive years, Sabral's influence on how frontline retail managers develop their people-first leadership skills is substantial.

6. Laura Hnatow

Laura Hnatow, Vice President of Marketing and eCommerce at Sea Bags, brings a practitioner's perspective on brand-led retail leadership from within a values-driven American retail company. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, Hnatow's work focuses on how retail leaders build genuine brand identity through team culture and customer experience, demonstrating that authentic leadership at the operational level translates directly into distinctive brand performance.

Sea Bags is a Maine-based company known for its commitment to craft, sustainability, and community, and Hnatow's leadership of both marketing and eCommerce reflects the integration of human and commercial values that defines the most compelling retail cultures. Her contributions to the NRF Retail Voices community and her active LinkedIn presence make her one of the clearest practitioner voices on purposeful retail leadership.

Women in Retail Leadership

The women in retail leadership category recognises voices who have made the advancement, development, and recognition of women in retail a central part of their professional contribution. American retail is majority female at the workforce level but has historically been underrepresented by women at the senior and C-suite level, making the work of the leaders in this category structurally important to the health and fairness of the industry.

7. Jennifer DiPasquale

Jennifer DiPasquale, President and Co-Founder of the Women in Retail Leadership Circle, has built the most significant professional community for women in US retail leadership. The Women in Retail Leadership Circle convenes senior female executives across retail for peer learning, advocacy, and development, and under DiPasquale's leadership it has grown to become a structurally important institution for the industry. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, she brings both organisational acumen and genuine mission focus to her work.

The community DiPasquale has built addresses a real gap: senior women in retail often have limited access to peers at a comparable level who understand the specific dynamics of their industry. The Women in Retail Leadership Circle creates that access at scale. Her co-founding of the organisation alongside Melissa Campanelli reflects a shared commitment to making retail leadership development genuinely inclusive at the top as well as the bottom of the industry hierarchy.

8. Kimberly Lee Minor

Kimberly Lee Minor, CEO of the WOC Retail Alliance, leads the most focused organisation in the US retail sector working to advance women of colour in retail leadership roles. Her work addresses one of the most persistent gaps in retail's leadership pipeline: the underrepresentation of women of colour at senior levels despite their significant representation in the retail workforce. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, Minor brings a combination of strategic focus and genuine community leadership to this work.

The WOC Retail Alliance provides mentorship, professional development, and networking specifically designed for women of colour navigating retail careers, filling a gap that more general retail organisations have been slow to address. Minor's public commentary on retail leadership consistently brings the perspective of underrepresented voices to conversations that have historically been dominated by a narrower range of experiences.

9. Melissa Campanelli

Melissa Campanelli, Co-Founder of the Women in Retail Leadership Circle and longtime editorial leader in the retail media space, brings a unique combination of journalism expertise and community leadership to the retail industry. Named a 2025 Silver Apple Honoree by the Marketing Club of New York, recognising 25+ years of outstanding marketing leadership, Campanelli has spent her career creating platforms and spaces for retail voices that deserve amplification.

Her editorial background gives her work a clarity and rigour that pure advocacy voices sometimes lack. The Women in Retail Leadership Circle's content and events under her co-leadership consistently reflect genuine industry insight rather than self-promotion. Her ongoing contributions to retail media and her leadership of WIRLC make her one of the most constructive voices shaping the retail leadership conversation for women in the industry.

10. Dawn Robertson

Dawn Robertson brings one of the deepest executive track records of any voice on this list, with a retail career spanning C-suite leadership at multiple global brands and current board-level responsibilities at Splitit and the Apparel Group. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, Robertson's perspective combines operational depth with strategic board-level insight that few retail voices can match.

Her specific contribution to the retail leadership conversation is the integration of international retail executive experience with practical perspective on what great leadership looks like across very different retail contexts and cultures. Her commentary on retail strategy and leadership consistently reflects the confidence of someone who has navigated the full complexity of the role rather than observed it from outside.

11. Sharon Gai

Sharon Gai, a keynote speaker and author focused on retail's digital transformation and consumer engagement, brings a particularly valuable perspective on how American retailers connect with global consumer culture. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, Gai's work focuses on the intersection of technology, consumer psychology, and leadership inside retail organisations navigating rapid change.

Her commentary on how retail leaders build cultural relevance with diverse consumer audiences gives her a distinctive place in the retail leadership conversation. She speaks and writes with the perspective of someone who understands both the cultural intelligence required to lead diverse retail teams and the strategic thinking required to connect those teams to a changing consumer landscape.

Retail Strategy and Commercial Leadership

The retail strategy and commercial leadership category covers voices whose primary focus is connecting people leadership decisions to commercial outcomes. These are the analysts, consultants, and operators who help retail leaders understand not just how to lead their teams but why the commercial stakes of great leadership are higher than ever.

12. Steve Dennis

Steve Dennis, President and Founder of SageBerry Consulting and co-host of the Remarkable Retail podcast, is one of the most consistently substantive voices on the intersection of retail strategy and leadership. His two books Remarkable Retail: How to Win and Keep Customers in the Age of Disruption and Leaders Leap: Transforming Your Company at the Speed of Disruption both address the specific leadership challenges of a retail industry under existential pressure from digital disruption and changing consumer expectations.

Dennis brings credibility from his background as a senior executive at Neiman Marcus and Sears, combined with his ongoing advisory work with major retail brands globally. His Remarkable Retail podcast, which he co-hosts with Michael LeBlanc, has featured C-suite executives from Amazon, Walmart, IKEA, Tractor Supply, and dozens of other major retailers in conversation about growth, transformation, and leadership. He holds a 2026 NRF Retail Voice designation and is a Forbes senior retail contributor.

13. Carol Spieckerman

Carol Spieckerman, President of Spieckerman Retail, is one of the most respected retail strategy consultants and media commentators in the United States. A founding member of RETHINK Retail's Top Retail Experts community and a long-term RetailWire expert panellist, Spieckerman has spent more than two decades helping suppliers, brand marketers, and solution providers navigate the dynamics of retailer relationships and positioning.

Her specific focus on B2B retail business development and positioning gives her a commercial lens that complements the more consumer-facing perspectives that dominate retail leadership commentary. Her podcast Spieckerman Speaks Retail and her prolific media commentary keep her at the centre of the most practically useful retail strategy conversations. Her recent contribution to the Retail Cloud Alliance Tariffs and Trade Report reflects her willingness to engage with the most pressing commercial challenges facing US retail in 2026.

14. Bryan Gildenberg

Bryan Gildenberg, Founder and CEO of Confluencer Commerce, is one of the most analytically rigorous voices on how retail's largest players are reshaping the industry's competitive dynamics. His regular commentary on Walmart and Target's strategic moves, and their implications for the broader retail ecosystem, is cited regularly by retail media as the most consistently insightful independent perspective available.

Gildenberg's background includes senior analyst roles at major research firms before he founded Confluencer Commerce. His ability to translate complex retail competitive dynamics into practical implications for retail leaders and their teams gives his work genuine relevance beyond the financial and strategic analysis space. His commentary is regularly featured in Modern Retail and other major retail trade publications.

15. Sucharita Kodali

Sucharita Kodali, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, is the most consistently cited independent analyst voice on US retail strategy and ecommerce. Her 2026 reports on retail's flight to profitability and her assessment of what it means for apparel and footwear brands to own their own commercial destiny have shaped boardroom conversations across the industry. Her analysis of the 2025 Black Friday and Cyber Monday results provided the most authoritative interpretation of holiday retail data available to senior leaders.

Kodali's specific contribution to retail leadership thinking is her ability to frame commercial pressure in ways that illuminate what leadership decisions actually drive outcomes. Her work at Forrester gives her access to data and executive networks that independent voices cannot match, and her willingness to deliver clear, non-hedged assessments of where retail strategy is working and failing makes her one of the most practically useful voices for retail leaders navigating uncertainty.

16. Hitha Herzog

Hitha Herzog, Founder and Chief Research Officer at H Squared Research LLC, brings consumer and retail insights work to the retail leadership conversation with a distinctive focus on the psychological and cultural dimensions of how consumers relate to retail. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, Herzog's research examines how consumer behaviour shifts intersect with the leadership and culture decisions that shape retail organisations.

Her media presence across major business publications and broadcast outlets gives her insights a reach well beyond the retail trade media ecosystem. For retail leaders trying to understand the connection between their team's customer-facing behaviours and the consumer psychology driving purchasing decisions, Herzog's work provides one of the most accessible and commercially grounded frameworks available.

17. Simeon Siegel

Simeon Siegel, Managing Director and Senior Analyst for Retail and eCommerce at BMO Capital Markets, is the financial markets' most respected voice on the intersection of retail performance, brand strategy, and leadership decisions. His analysis of retail brand economics, including his research on why margin discipline and brand authenticity are more commercially durable than volume growth, has influenced how retail executives think about the trade-offs at the heart of their strategies.

Siegel's contribution to the retail leadership conversation is his insistence that financial rigour and brand clarity are not in tension, and that the best retail leaders hold both simultaneously. His public commentary on why retail companies pursue growth strategies that systematically erode the differentiation their teams need to deliver on is one of the most consistently challenging perspectives available in the industry.

18. Marie Driscoll

Marie Driscoll, CEO and Chief Consultant at Driscoll Advisors, is a luxury retail strategist and analyst with decades of experience advising on brand positioning, consumer behaviour, and leadership at the premium end of US retail. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, Driscoll's specific area of expertise is the leadership disciplines required to maintain luxury retail standards in an environment of rapid change and digital disruption.

Her work on how luxury retail brands build and sustain the team culture required to deliver genuinely premium customer experiences connects strategy and people leadership in a way that is practically useful for senior retail leaders. Her commentary on high-profile luxury retail developments in 2025 and 2026 has provided some of the most nuanced analysis available from an independent perspective.

Retail People Strategy and Workforce Development

This category covers voices focused specifically on how US retail organisations build, develop, and retain the talent they need to compete. These are the practitioners working on the structural dimensions of retail's people challenge: how you build a leadership pipeline, how you design development experiences that actually work, and how you create the conditions for retail talent to stay.

19. Liza Amlani

Liza Amlani, Principal and Founder of the Retail Strategy Group, focuses on the intersection of product creation, retail operations, and the organisational capabilities required to execute on strategy. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, Amlani is currently completing The Material Life: Process Innovation for Retailers and Brands, a book addressing how modern retail teams can transform their product creation processes to unlock speed, efficiency, and profit.

Her specific contribution to the retail leadership conversation is the connection she draws between process design and people capability. She argues that most retail operational failures are fundamentally leadership and capability failures that happen upstream in the process, and that fixing them requires as much attention to how teams work together as to the tools and systems they use. Her research-grounded approach gives her work a rigour that complements her practical consulting background.

20. Lupine Skelly

Lupine Skelly, Retail, Wholesale and Distribution Research Leader at Deloitte Services LP, produces some of the most authoritative research available on how macro retail trends intersect with the leadership and workforce decisions retailers must make. Her annual Retail Industry Outlook reports have become standard references for senior executives navigating the intersection of consumer behaviour change, technology adoption, and operational strategy.

Her Deloitte base provides access to research resources, executive networks, and data that independent analysts cannot match, and her ability to translate complex macro findings into practical leadership implications gives her work genuine usefulness for retail people leaders. Her focus on consumer behaviour as a driver of operational and leadership decisions positions her as one of the most valuable bridge-building voices between strategy research and people practice.

21. Mina Fader

Mina Fader, Managing Director of the Baker Retailing Center at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, leads one of the most important institutional resources for the development of future retail leaders in the United States. The Baker Retailing Center serves as the bridge between Wharton's research capabilities and the practical talent pipeline needs of the retail industry, and Fader's leadership of it has shaped how thousands of students approach retail careers.

Her work connects the academic and practitioner communities in retail in ways that benefit both. Retailers gain access to research and talent; students gain exposure to the operational realities of the industry. Her participation as a 2026 NRF Retail Voice reflects the recognition by the retail community that the academic development of retail leadership talent is as strategically important as the operational development work that happens inside companies.

22. Barbara Kahn

Barbara Kahn, Patty and Jay H Baker Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, is one of the most respected academic voices in retail globally. Her research on retail strategy, customer experience, and how great retail organisations build competitive advantage has been foundational for both academic understanding and practitioner application. She is a 2026 RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert.

Her book The Shopping Revolution: How Successful Retailers Win Customers in an Era of Endless Disruption provides one of the most rigorous frameworks available for understanding what separates great retail organisations from struggling ones. Kahn's ability to bridge academic research and practical retail leadership makes her work particularly valuable for senior retail executives who want their intuitions tested against evidence rather than simply validated.

23. Adam Alter

Adam Alter, Professor of Marketing at NYU Stern School of Business and author of Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked, brings consumer psychology and behavioural science to the retail leadership conversation in ways that few other voices can. A 2026 RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert, Alter's research on consumer behaviour, decision-making, and the psychology of engagement has direct implications for how retail leaders design both customer and employee experiences.

His specific contribution to the retail leadership conversation is the bridge he draws between consumer psychology research and the practical decisions retail leaders make about how they design store environments, team interactions, and customer service approaches. His work at NYU Stern and his prolific public engagement make him one of the most accessible academic voices on the behavioural science dimensions of retail leadership.

24. Dinesh Gauri

Dinesh Gauri, Professor of Retailing at the University at Buffalo, is one of the most rigorous academic researchers working on the specific economic and operational dimensions of retail performance. His research on retail pricing, consumer behaviour, and retail operations provides the kind of evidence base that retail leaders making high-stakes strategic decisions need access to. He is a 2026 RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert.

His academic work spans retail strategy, pricing analytics, and consumer behaviour research that has been published in major academic journals and applied in retail environments. His focus on the quantitative dimensions of retail performance gives his work a complementary role alongside the more qualitative leadership and culture voices on this list.

25. Anne Mezzenga

Anne Mezzenga, Co-CEO of Omni Talk Retail, is one of the most active voices on the intersection of retail strategy, technology, and leadership in the United States. Her platform Omni Talk produces prolific retail commentary across podcast, video, and written formats, and her perspective consistently connects operational and technological developments to the leadership decisions that determine whether retailers can capitalise on them.

A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, Mezzenga's work reflects the understanding that retail strategy and retail leadership are inseparable. The most rigorous omnichannel strategy in the world fails without the leadership capability to execute it, and her commentary consistently surfaces this connection. Her engagement with the retail community across social media and live events makes her one of the most networked and collaborative voices in the industry.

Retail Innovation and Experience Leadership

This category covers voices who centre their work on the innovation and physical experience dimensions of retail leadership. These are the practitioners helping retail leaders understand how store design, customer experience strategy, and innovation culture connect to the people and leadership decisions that make them possible.

26. Kevin Ervin Kelley

Kevin Ervin Kelley, Principal and Co-Founder of Shook Kelley, is one of America's most distinctive voices on the psychology of why people visit stores and what retail environments need to do to earn those visits in a world of digital convenience. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, Kelley's work combines environmental psychology, brand strategy, and store design in a framework he calls "brandscaping" that has shaped how major retailers think about their physical presence.

His specific contribution to the retail leadership conversation is the argument that great physical retail is fundamentally a leadership act: it requires retail leaders to make conscious decisions about the kind of environment and culture they want to create, and to lead their teams in sustaining it consistently. His prolific writing and speaking on experiential retail gives retail leaders a vocabulary for articulating the connection between their people decisions and their customer experience outcomes.

27. Melissa Gonzalez

Melissa Gonzalez, Principal at MG2 and CEO and Founder of the Lionesque Group, has spent her career at the intersection of retail strategy, store design, and the customer and employee experience disciplines that determine whether retail environments succeed. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice and host of the Retail Refined podcast, Gonzalez brings both design expertise and a genuine understanding of what great retail leadership looks like in practice.

Her work on how in-store technology, customer storytelling, and retail innovation intersect with the team culture and leadership required to deliver consistently on those ambitions gives her a practically grounded perspective. She has spoken at major industry events including Shoptalk, World Retail Congress, NRF, and the Vogue Business Summit, and her commentary on retail's future consistently connects the physical and digital dimensions to the human capabilities required to execute on them.

28. Jeremy Bergstein

Jeremy Bergstein, CEO of The Science Project, brings a research and innovation methodology to retail strategy that grounds ambitious retail transformation projects in evidence about how consumers actually behave. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, Bergstein's work helps retail organisations understand not just what innovations might be possible but how to build the internal capabilities and culture required to bring them to life.

His specific contribution to the retail leadership conversation is the emphasis he places on the capability-building and leadership development work that must accompany any significant retail transformation initiative. He is vocal about the failure mode of retailers who invest in innovation without investing equally in the human leadership required to sustain it.

29. Sanford Stein

Sanford Stein, Founder of RETAIL SPEAK on LinkedIn, is one of the most distinctive community-building voices in American retail leadership. Through his LinkedIn community, Stein has created a space for retail professionals to engage with the ideas, challenges, and opportunities shaping the industry, with a particular focus on the intersection of retail culture, brand leadership, and consumer experience.

A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, Stein's RETAIL SPEAK community and his prolific LinkedIn commentary demonstrate how thought leadership can be built as much through community curation as through original research or writing. His background in retail strategy and brand development gives his perspective a commercial grounding that elevates the community above general retail commentary.

30. Bryan Amaral

Bryan Amaral, Founder, President and CEO of Clientricity LLC, works at the intersection of retail technology, clienteling strategy, and the human leadership required to deliver genuinely personalised retail experiences. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, Amaral's work focuses on how retail organisations build the leadership culture and capabilities required to execute on clienteling strategies that technology enables but people must deliver.

His specific contribution to the retail leadership conversation is the emphasis he places on the human relational dimensions of retail, arguing that the most powerful retail loyalty comes from genuine human connection between associates and customers, and that building that requires specific and often undervalued leadership disciplines. His Clientricity platform brings this philosophy into practical implementation for retailers across formats and segments.

Retail Media, Content, and Community Leadership

This category covers voices whose primary contribution to retail leadership comes through media platforms, content creation, and community building. These are the people who have shaped where and how retail leadership conversations happen in the United States, creating the infrastructure through which ideas, research, and experience flow between practitioners.

31. Ken Pilot

Ken Pilot, Founder and Host of Ken Pilot Ventures and The Retail Pilot podcast, brings decades of apparel and retail executive experience to a platform focused on the strategic and leadership dimensions of the industry. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, Pilot has built his podcast and community work around conversations with the senior retail leaders who are actively navigating the industry's most significant challenges.

His executive background, including senior roles at major apparel and specialty retail companies, gives his platform a credibility with C-suite retail audiences that more analyst-focused voices cannot easily replicate. His specific contribution to the retail leadership conversation is the quality and depth of the executive conversations his platform facilitates, surfacing perspectives from leaders who do not always engage with general retail media.

32. Alicia Esposito

Alicia Esposito, Director of Content and Media Strategy at Future Commerce, is one of the most prolific and thoughtful content voices in US retail media. Her work at Future Commerce, where she produces analysis at the intersection of commerce, culture, and consumer identity, brings a genuinely distinctive lens to retail leadership questions that most retail media does not address.

Her January 2026 piece "Most Teams Fail Quietly. Here's How Leaders Can Fix the System" and her ongoing editorial work on retail brand vision and leadership failure modes demonstrate a consistent focus on the people and culture dimensions of retail strategy. Her background as VP of Content at Retail TouchPoints and host of the Retail Remix podcast, combined with her current role at Future Commerce, makes her one of the most experienced retail content voices in the country.

33. Julia Hare

Julia Hare, Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of RETHINK Retail, leads the most significant independent retail media platform in the United States. Under her editorial leadership, RETHINK Retail has grown from a podcast and content platform into the industry's primary recognition programme for retail thought leaders, through the Top Retail Experts community and its partnership with NRF on the Retail Voices programme. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, Hare's editorial perspective shapes what the retail industry considers important and who it recognises as influential.

Her specific contribution to retail leadership is the quality of the editorial curation she brings to a space that can drift toward vendor-driven content and promotional thought leadership. RETHINK Retail under her leadership consistently prioritises practitioner insight over sponsored perspective, and the result is a platform that genuinely serves the retail community's intellectual needs.

34. Ricardo Belmar

Ricardo Belmar, Director of Partner Marketing for Retail and Consumer Goods at Microsoft and co-host of the Retail Razor podcast, is one of the most analytically rigorous voices on the intersection of technology adoption and retail leadership in the United States. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert continuously since 2021, Belmar's work focuses on how retail organisations build the internal capabilities and cultures required to deploy AI and digital technologies effectively.

His Thinkers360 rankings, including Top 10 Retail and Top 50 Agentic AI, reflect the breadth of his engagement with the technology dimensions of retail leadership. His specific contribution to the retail leadership conversation is his insistence that technology adoption is fundamentally a leadership and culture challenge as much as a technical one, and that the retailers most successfully deploying AI are those whose leaders have done the internal alignment work first.

35. Jenna Posner

Jenna Posner, Founder of Chief Digital Agency, brings a digital strategy and leadership perspective to the retail conversation that is grounded in direct advisory work with retail organisations navigating transformation. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, Posner's work focuses on how retail leaders build the digital capabilities and cultures their organisations need to compete effectively in a landscape where digital and physical retail are inseparable.

Her specific contribution to the retail leadership conversation is the emphasis she places on the organisational and leadership dimensions of digital transformation, arguing that the most common failure mode is not a technology gap but a leadership and culture gap in how retailers approach digital capability building.

Retail Data, Research, and Insights Leadership

This category covers voices whose primary contribution is through data, research, and analytical insight. These are the people who produce the evidence base that retail leadership decisions should be grounded in, from consumer research and market analysis to operational benchmarks and leadership development studies.

36. David Weinand

David Weinand, Co-Founder and Chief Customer Officer at Incisiv, leads one of the most practically focused retail research and benchmarking organisations in the United States. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, Weinand's work through Incisiv produces the operational and digital maturity benchmarks that retail leaders use to understand where their organisations stand relative to peers and what the highest-performing retailers do differently.

His specific contribution to the retail leadership conversation is the translation of competitive benchmark data into actionable leadership insight. Rather than simply reporting where the industry is, Incisiv's research under Weinand's leadership consistently surfaces what the organisations performing best are doing from a leadership, culture, and capability-building perspective that others can learn from.

37. Matt Nichols

Matt Nichols, General Partner at Commerce Ventures, brings the investor perspective to the retail leadership conversation, providing insight into how the capital that funds retail innovation assesses leadership quality, culture, and capability as investment criteria. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, Nichols' work at Commerce Ventures, which focuses on technology investments at the intersection of commerce and financial services, gives him a distinctive vantage point on how retail leadership quality translates into commercial and investment outcomes.

His specific contribution to the retail leadership conversation is the investor lens he applies to retail organisation-building questions, surfacing the connection between leadership culture and investment thesis in ways that are useful for retail executives building the internal case for people and culture investment.

38. Elaine Parr

Elaine Parr, Vice President of Consumer Industries at IBM Consulting, works with retail organisations globally on the transformation and capability-building challenges that define the industry's current moment. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, Parr's work at IBM brings the consulting and implementation perspective to retail leadership questions, grounding strategic ambitions in operational realities.

Her specific contribution to the retail leadership conversation is the emphasis she places on the change management and people dimensions of retail technology transformation. IBM Consulting's work across retail's largest transformation projects gives her perspective on what distinguishes retailers that successfully build new capabilities from those that invest heavily but fail to change the way their organisations actually work.

39. Chris Silver

Chris Silver, Co-Founder and Head of Product at Discoverist AI, brings the perspective of a retail technology entrepreneur who understands from the inside how AI-powered tools intersect with the human leadership required to deploy them effectively. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, Silver's work at Discoverist AI focuses on how retailers use AI to understand and respond to consumer discovery behaviour in ways that require new leadership capabilities across marketing, merchandising, and store operations.

His specific contribution to the retail leadership conversation is the practitioner's perspective he brings to questions about what AI actually requires from retail leaders: not just technical adoption but the mindset and culture changes that allow organisations to use AI as a genuine capability multiplier rather than a cost-cutting tool.

40. Emily Culp

Emily Culp, Chief Strategy and Brand Officer at BodyHealth, is a former digital and eCommerce executive whose work now focuses on the intersection of brand strategy, digital leadership, and the internal culture required to build genuinely coherent brand experiences across channels. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, Culp's background includes senior digital roles at major retail brands, giving her the operational depth to connect brand strategy theory to practical leadership execution.

Her specific contribution to the retail leadership conversation is the emphasis she places on the internal culture and leadership alignment required for brand strategy to translate into consistent customer experience. She argues that brand incoherence is almost always a leadership and culture problem before it is a strategy problem, and that fixing it requires work that goes deeper than marketing.

Retail C-Suite and Executive Leadership

This category covers active C-suite leaders at major retail organisations who are contributing to the retail leadership conversation through public speaking, media engagement, and the visibility of their leadership decisions. These are the executives whose actions and public commentary are shaping how American retail leadership is practiced at scale.

41. Kory Marchisotto

Kory Marchisotto, Chief Marketing Officer at e.l.f. Beauty, is one of the most celebrated brand leadership voices to emerge from US retail in recent years. Named to the NRF Foundation's People Shaping Retail's Future 2026 list, Marchisotto has led e.l.f. Beauty's marketing function through a period of remarkable commercial momentum, building a culture of creative risk-taking and genuine consumer connection that has made e.l.f. one of the most-studied brand leadership cases in US retail.

Her specific contribution to the retail leadership conversation is the demonstration that values-aligned marketing leadership, built on genuine cultural understanding and team culture, delivers superior commercial results. Her public commentary on how she has built the e.l.f. marketing team and its creative culture is one of the most practically useful executive leadership case studies available in retail today.

42. Brieane Olson

Brieane Olson, CEO of PacSun, is one of the most closely watched retail CEOs in the American specialty apparel space, having led PacSun's brand and cultural repositioning with a people-first leadership philosophy that has become a case study in retail brand revival. Named to the NRF Foundation's People Shaping Retail's Future 2026 list, Olson's work connects brand authenticity, team culture, and commercial performance in ways that are instructive for any retail leader.

Her specific contribution to the retail leadership conversation is the deliberate way she has publicly connected her leadership philosophy and cultural values to PacSun's commercial strategy. Her willingness to be transparent about how she leads, what she prioritises, and how she makes decisions under pressure makes her one of the most valuable executive voices for retail leaders looking for a credible model of values-aligned commercial leadership.

43. Billy May

Billy May, CEO of Brooklinen, leads one of the most successful DTC-to-retail transitions in the American home goods space, and his leadership of Brooklinen's expansion into physical retail provides a valuable case study in how digital-first leaders adapt their culture and people strategies for omnichannel environments. Named to the NRF Foundation's People Shaping Retail's Future 2026 list, May's public commentary on leadership, growth, and culture reflects a refreshingly direct perspective on the challenges of scaling a people-first retail business.

His specific contribution to the retail leadership conversation is the DTC founder's perspective on what physical retail requires from leaders who have built their organisations in digital environments: new disciplines, new team structures, and often a significant recalibration of the leadership assumptions that served them in a single-channel world.

44. Kathleen McLaughlin

Kathleen McLaughlin, Executive Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer at Walmart, is one of the most senior and publicly influential voices on how large-scale retail organisations build the leadership culture and governance structures required to pursue sustainability as a genuine business strategy rather than a reputational asset. Named to the NRF Foundation's People Shaping Retail's Future 2026 list, McLaughlin's work at Walmart has shaped how the world's largest retailer approaches the intersection of commercial strategy, workforce development, and social responsibility.

Her specific contribution to the retail leadership conversation is the scale and rigour she brings to questions about how retail organisations build cultures capable of sustained purpose-driven leadership. Walmart's scale means that McLaughlin's work on these questions has implications for supply chains, workforce practices, and community relationships that affect millions of people, and her public engagement with these challenges provides practical insight for retail leaders at all levels.

45. Scott McBride

Scott McBride, Chief Global Asset Protection Officer and Chief Security Officer at American Eagle Outfitters, is one of the most credible voices on the intersection of retail security leadership, team culture, and the operational complexities of keeping retail environments safe and functional at scale. Named to the NRF Foundation's People Shaping Retail's Future 2026 list, McBride's work represents a dimension of retail leadership that is often underrepresented in conventional retail leadership commentary.

His specific contribution to the retail leadership conversation is the reminder that great retail leadership includes the operational disciplines required to maintain safe, functional store environments for both associates and customers. His work at American Eagle Outfitters and his public engagement on organised retail crime and workplace safety issues give him a distinctive and practically important voice in the industry.

46. Andrew Laudato

Andrew Laudato, Chief Operating Officer at The Vitamin Shoppe, brings the deep operational perspective of a retail COO to the leadership conversation. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, Laudato's work at The Vitamin Shoppe reflects the specific leadership challenges of health and wellness retail, where associate product knowledge, customer consultation skills, and operational consistency are all simultaneously mission-critical.

His specific contribution to the retail leadership conversation is the operational realism he brings to discussions about what it takes to build and sustain high-performance retail teams at scale. The COO perspective is often missing from retail leadership commentary, which skews toward strategy and marketing, and Laudato's visibility in the industry helps rebalance that picture.

47. Chandhu Nair

Chandhu Nair, Senior Vice President of Product and Technology and Data and AI at Lowe's Companies, brings the perspective of a senior technology leader at one of America's largest home improvement retailers to questions about how AI and data transformation connect to the people and leadership dimensions of retail. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, Nair's work at Lowe's reflects the genuine complexity of leading technology transformation at a company with thousands of locations and hundreds of thousands of associates.

His specific contribution to the retail leadership conversation is the technology leader's perspective on what it means to build AI and data capabilities in a retail organisation at the scale of Lowe's. The cultural and leadership dimensions of this work, including how you bring frontline associates and store managers along on a transformation journey they did not design, are among the most important and least-discussed dimensions of retail leadership in 2026.

48. Rebecca Fitts

Rebecca Fitts, Senior Vice President of Business Strategy at Alvarez and Marsal Property Solutions, brings the retail real estate and restructuring perspective to the retail leadership conversation. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, Fitts's work at one of the most respected retail advisory firms in the US gives her insight into how retail organisations navigate some of their most difficult leadership challenges, including the decisions required during store network restructuring, financial stress, and strategic repositioning.

Her specific contribution to the retail leadership conversation is the restructuring and advisory perspective on what great retail leadership looks like under conditions of genuine pressure and constraint. The leaders who navigate retail distress situations well are demonstrating leadership capabilities that are instructive far beyond the crisis context, and Fitts's work surfaces those lessons for a broader audience.

49. Sree Sreedhararaj

Sree Sreedhararaj, Chief Technology Officer at IPSY, brings the perspective of a senior technology executive at one of the leading subscription beauty retailers in the United States. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, Sreedhararaj's work focuses on how technology leadership connects to the personalisation, customer experience, and team culture dimensions of retail that determine whether subscriptions succeed at scale.

His specific contribution to the retail leadership conversation is the technology executive's view on the people and culture dimensions of building retail capabilities that are genuinely customer-centric. His experience at IPSY, a business built on personalisation at scale, gives him direct insight into what team culture and leadership practices are required when customer experience is the product.

50. Yael Kochman

Yael Kochman, Chief Marketing Officer at buywith and Founder and CEO at Re:Tech, brings a retail technology innovation perspective focused on how social commerce, live shopping, and community-driven retail formats are reshaping the leadership requirements for retail marketing and customer experience teams. A 2026 NRF Retail Voice, Kochman's work at the intersection of social commerce and retail leadership reflects some of the most significant consumer behaviour shifts affecting how retail teams need to be structured and led.

Her specific contribution to the retail leadership conversation is the perspective she brings on how the channels and formats through which consumers discover and buy products are changing the leadership disciplines required to serve them effectively. The implications for how retail leaders build and develop their teams, particularly in marketing and customer experience, are significant and underexplored in most retail leadership commentary.

Notable Voices Worth Following

Beyond the 50 people profiled in this directory, several voices deserve mention for their contribution to specific dimensions of the retail leadership conversation. For the grocery retail leadership conversation specifically, the directory at consultclarity.org/post/thought-leaders-grocery-retail profiles 35 voices whose work is particularly relevant to food retail leaders.

For a global view of retail leadership voices, the broader thought leaders in retail post at consultclarity.org/post/50-best-thought-leaders-in-retail-2026 provides a complementary set of perspectives that extends beyond the US market.

Common Mistakes Retail Leadership Teams Make

The most common mistake retail leadership teams make is treating leadership development as a training event rather than an ongoing operational discipline. A two-day offsite or an annual leadership programme cannot substitute for the continuous coaching, feedback, and accountability conversations that build genuine leadership capability over time. The research is unambiguous: leadership development that is embedded in daily work produces significantly better outcomes than development that is extracted from it.

The second most common mistake is confusing activity with accountability. Many retail organisations have robust performance management systems that generate data about what is happening in their stores but do not have the leadership culture required to act on that data honestly and consistently. Accountability is not a system or a process. It is a relational discipline that requires leaders to have the honest conversations that their organisations are avoiding, consistently and without punishing the messenger.

The third mistake is underinvesting in the district manager and regional leadership layer. Considerable attention in retail goes to both the frontline associate experience and the senior executive strategy, but the district manager role, which is arguably the most leveraged leadership position in any multi-site retail organisation, is chronically underresourced and underdeveloped. The leaders on this list, particularly Steve Worthy and Ron Thurston, have been vocal about this gap for years.

Fourth, many retail organisations fail to connect their leadership development investment to their commercial outcomes in ways that make the business case visible. Leadership development that cannot demonstrate commercial impact will always lose the budget argument to technology investment or marketing spend. The voices in this directory who do this connection most effectively, including Sucharita Kodali, Simeon Siegel, and Bryan Gildenberg, are models for how to make the case.

Fifth, retail leadership teams consistently underestimate the extent to which culture is set by what leaders tolerate rather than what they say they value. If a leader says that customer experience is the highest priority but tolerates shortcuts that undermine it, the team will follow the behaviour, not the statement.

Bringing Jonno White in to facilitate working genius sessions or difficult conversations workshops can help retail leadership teams identify and close the gaps between stated and actual culture. Email jonno@consultclarity.org to discuss options.

Implementation Guide: How to Use This Directory

The most effective way to use this directory is as a starting point for building a diverse and rigorous ongoing reading and learning practice for your retail leadership team. Rather than following all 50 voices simultaneously, identify four or five whose focus areas map most directly to the specific leadership challenges your organisation is navigating, and engage deeply with their content over a quarter.

If your primary challenge is frontline development and store culture, start with Ron Thurston, Steve Worthy, and April Sabral. Their work is the most practically grounded on the specific disciplines required to build and sustain high-performing store teams. Thurston's Retail Pride and Worthy's Retail Leadership Development Study provide complementary starting points: one grounded in individual practitioner development, the other in organisational capability assessment.

If your primary challenge is connecting leadership investment to commercial outcomes, start with Sucharita Kodali's Forrester analysis, Simeon Siegel's brand economics research, and Barbara Kahn's academic framework for retail competitive advantage. Together, these three voices provide a rigorous evidence base for the commercial case for leadership investment that can survive executive scrutiny.

If your primary challenge is developing women and underrepresented leaders in your pipeline, the Women in Retail Leadership Circle under Jennifer DiPasquale and Melissa Campanelli, and Kimberly Lee Minor's WOC Retail Alliance, are the most directly relevant resources. Both organisations offer membership, events, and development programming designed specifically for the retail context.

For retail leadership teams that want to go deeper than content consumption and into genuine capability transformation, Jonno White works with retail and corporate leadership teams globally on the working genius facilitation, difficult conversations coaching, and executive team alignment work that makes the difference between knowing what great leadership looks like and actually building it. His book Step Up or Step Out (10,000+ copies sold) is available at Amazon. Email jonno@consultclarity.org or visit consultclarity.org. Many organisations find that international travel costs are far more affordable than expected, and Jonno also works virtually across time zones.

For the broader global retail leadership conversation, the companion post at consultclarity.org/post/50-best-thought-leaders-in-retail-2026 provides 50 additional voices from the global retail ecosystem.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who are the most important retail leadership thought leaders in the USA right now?

The most practically useful voices for retail leadership practitioners in the United States right now include Ron Thurston and Steve Worthy for frontline and store leadership development, Sucharita Kodali and Simeon Siegel for the commercial evidence base, Jennifer DiPasquale and Kimberly Lee Minor for women and diversity in retail leadership, and Barbara Kahn and Mina Fader for the academic research dimensions. Each of these voices produces content regularly in 2025 and 2026 that is directly relevant to the challenges retail leaders face.

For leadership team facilitation and development, Jonno White at Consult Clarity works with retail and corporate organisations globally. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

What is the difference between retail thought leaders and retail leadership thought leaders?

Most retail thought leaders focus on retail strategy, technology, consumer behaviour, and market analysis, addressing how the industry is changing and what retailers should do commercially. Retail leadership thought leaders focus specifically on the people and culture dimensions of retail: how to develop store managers, how to build accountability cultures, how to retain frontline talent, and how to translate strategic vision into human performance. This directory focuses on the leadership dimension, complementing the broader strategy and analysis perspectives covered in other resources.

How do I develop retail leaders in my organisation?

Effective retail leadership development combines formal learning, peer community, on-the-job coaching, and structured accountability. The research from Steve Worthy's 2025 Retail Leadership Development Study, downloaded more than 3,000 times, found that over 17% of retail leaders say their training does not align with the real challenges they face, suggesting that most retail development investment misses the most important capability gaps. The best-performing retail organisations combine exposure to the external thought leadership voices in this directory with internal coaching structures that apply those ideas to specific operational realities.

For executive team alignment and facilitation, Jonno White works with retail leadership teams to build the communication, accountability, and team effectiveness foundations that development programmes build on. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Which retail leadership podcasts are worth following in the USA?

The most valuable retail leadership podcasts in the United States in 2026 include Retail Leadership with Steve Worthy, which focuses specifically on senior store leadership and field management; Frontline Fridays with Ron Thurston, which centres the voices of store-level retail professionals; The Retail Pilot with Ken Pilot, which features C-suite retail conversations; and Omni Talk Retail, which connects strategy and leadership across formats and channels. For broader retail strategy and analysis, the Remarkable Retail podcast with Steve Dennis and Michael LeBlanc is the most consistently substantive available.

How is retail leadership different from leadership in other industries?

Retail leadership operates at a specific intersection of scale, speed, and human intensity that few other industries match. Managing teams of associates who interact with thousands of customers daily, across multiple locations, under constant operational pressure, with high turnover and significant workforce diversity, requires a form of practical leadership intelligence that is genuinely different from the leadership challenges of most other industries. The best retail leaders have developed disciplined frameworks for coaching under time pressure, building accountability cultures in high-turnover environments, and sustaining team engagement when the work is physically demanding and the recognition is limited.

For working genius facilitation and difficult conversations workshops specifically designed to build these capabilities in retail leadership teams, engage Jonno White at jonno@consultclarity.org.

Final Thoughts

The 50 voices in this directory represent some of the most valuable thinking available on what great retail leadership looks like in the United States in 2026. What connects them across their very different perspectives, backgrounds, and areas of focus is a shared conviction that the people dimension of retail is not a soft priority alongside the commercial dimensions but is actually the foundation on which commercial performance is built.

The research is unambiguous on this. McKinsey's work on frontline employee retention, Gallup's declining engagement data, and the practical experience documented by every practitioner voice on this list all point to the same conclusion: great retail leadership produces measurably better outcomes across every commercial metric that matters. The investment in building it is not a cost. It is the highest-return investment a retail organisation can make.

For retail leadership teams ready to move from insight to action, the practical next step is finding the right facilitation and development partner to translate these ideas into the specific disciplines your organisation needs to build. Jonno White, Certified Working Genius Facilitator and author of Step Up or Step Out (10,000+ copies sold), works with retail and corporate leadership teams to build the communication, accountability, and team effectiveness foundations that distinguish great retail organisations from good ones. His podcast The Leadership Conversations (230+ episodes, 150+ countries) and his 7 Questions Movement (6,000+ participating leaders) reflect a sustained commitment to the kind of practical leadership development these voices are all pointing toward. To discuss how Jonno can work with your team, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

For more on the global retail leadership conversation, explore the companion post at consultclarity.org/post/thought-leaders-retail-leadership-au-nz, which profiles 50 voices shaping retail leadership in Australia and New Zealand.

For the grocery retail leadership conversation specifically, see consultclarity.org/post/thought-leaders-grocery-retail.

About the Author

Jonno White is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, author of Step Up or Step Out, and leadership consultant who has worked with schools, corporates, and nonprofits around the world. His book Step Up or Step Out has sold over 10,000 copies globally, and his podcast The Leadership Conversations has featured 230+ episodes reaching listeners in 150+ countries. Jonno founded The 7 Questions Movement with 6,000+ participating leaders and achieved a 93.75% satisfaction rating for his Working Genius masterclass at the ASBA 2025 National Conference. Based in Brisbane, Australia, Jonno works globally and regularly travels for speaking and facilitation engagements. Organisations consistently find that international travel is far more affordable than expected.

To book Jonno for your next keynote, workshop, or facilitation session, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Sources

Steve Worthy, 2025 Retail Leadership Development Study, Worthy Retail Global. National Retail Federation, 2026 State of Retail and the Consumer. Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026 Report. McKinsey research on frontline retail employee retention (cited via consultclarity.org/post/thought-leaders-grocery-retail).

Next Read

The 50 thought leaders profiled here all operate within a US retail landscape shaped by global competitive and consumer forces. For a complementary view of what retail leadership looks like in Australia and New Zealand, two markets experiencing their own version of the same structural pressures, the Consult Clarity directory at consultclarity.org/post/thought-leaders-retail-leadership-au-nz profiles 50 voices shaping retail leadership across the Tasman.

Keep reading: https://www.consultclarity.org/post/thought-leaders-retail-leadership-au-nz