consumer-retail
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Blake Marchand Put a Bar in a Dispensary - Then Let the Neighborhood Take a Seat
A real estate operator spent two years wrestling with permits, risked his savings, and turned a restaurant habit into March and Ash’s defining idea: make a complicated category feel like a place where people can linger, ask questions, and choose for themselves.
From the Grocery Aisle to the Cap Table
Justin Dye grew Albertsons by tens of billions. Now his Boca Raton firm buys seafood distributors, RV power tech and cannabis lenders - and runs each one like an operator, not a spreadsheet.
David Clayton Works Where the Aisle Meets the Algorithm
At Target, David Clayton sits at a useful intersection: sales, marketing and business intelligence. His career offers a practical view of what modern retail leadership looks like when the store, the app and the data all have to agree.
The 4,000-Café Bakery That Is Quietly Rebuilding America’s Neighborhood Cake Counter
Paris Baguette’s name points to France, its operating system comes from South Korea, and its growth plan is unmistakably North American. The result is a bakery-café built to make an everyday pastry run feel like an occasion - then repeat it hundreds of times.
Handel's Homemade Ice Cream
An 80-year-old Ohio ice cream counter is becoming a national franchise without outsourcing its central ritual: every parlor still makes the product on site. The constraint is also the pitch.
SHOE SHOW, INC.
SHOE SHOW, INC. is a privately held, family-owned footwear retailer based in Concord, North Carolina. Founded in 1960 by Robert and Carolyn Tucker, it sells branded shoes, handbags and accessories for the whole family at value prices through roughly 1,000-1,200 stores across 47 states under the Shoe Show, Shoe Dept., Shoe Dept. Encore, Shoe Show Mega, Burlington Shoes and Shoebilee! banners, plus a growing online store. The company runs a centralized distribution and store-support operation from Concord and moves about a million pairs of shoes a week.
Mike Meyer
Mike Meyer is Chief Marketing Officer at Fleet Farm, the roughly 70-year-old Midwestern farm-and-home retail chain headquartered in Appleton, Wisconsin. He arrived first as a consultant, embedded with the leadership team, and then stepped into the top marketing seat. A Baylor University graduate based near Fort Worth, Texas, he works at the intersection of rural retail heritage and modern digital marketing, writing publicly on topics like early-mover advantage and B2B intent data.
Vicki O'Donnell
Vicki O'Donnell is the Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Construction Officer of Shoe Show, Inc., the family-owned footwear chain based in Concord, North Carolina. In more than three decades with the company she has helped grow the private, low-key retailer into one of the largest shoe store chains in the United States, and led its long-overdue debut on social media and modern digital marketing.
Troy Forrest
Troy Forrest is the Chief Marketing Officer of Murdoch's Ranch & Home Supply, the Bozeman, Montana based retail chain serving ranchers, farmers and outdoor households across the Mountain West. A customer-centric marketer with more than two decades in brand, creative and ecommerce leadership, he previously served as Vice President of Marketing & eCommerce at Vera Bradley and held senior roles at The Buckle, Nasco and Harry & David.
Julio Casado
Julio Casado is the CEO of ANJA Life, the first adult-use cannabis dispensary in Highland Park, New Jersey, and the founder and managing partner of Full Funnel Growth, a NYC-based growth marketing agency. A Cornell-educated, Bronx-raised operator with a decade-plus background spanning Deloitte, AXA, Success Academy and Bridge Philanthropic Consulting, he now sits at the unlikely intersection of management consulting, e-commerce growth funnels, and a Sanskrit-rooted cannabis brand named for the act of manifesting.
Andrew Ekmark
Andrew Ekmark is the CEO and co-founder of Ink'd Greetings, a Phoenix-based startup that builds touchscreen kiosks printing personalized greeting cards on demand in about 30 seconds. He launched the company in 2023 with his wife Sammi after a frustrating last-minute Valentine's Day card hunt at Target, and has since grown the business to kiosks across dozens of states, raising roughly $2.5 million while taking direct aim at the legacy greeting card industry.