Latest / The Retail Podcast / Groceryshop and Shoptalks President Sophie Wawro

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Groceryshop and Shoptalks President Sophie Wawro · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to the Retail Podcast.
• 0:02
  Now with a week away from this amazing event that lots of
• 0:07
  people who are in the grocery world have on their calendar, it
• 0:10
  will be my first grocery shop. But who better than the
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  president of not only grocery shop, but shop talk as well?
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  Sophie Wabro to join us this morning from New York to talk
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  about these two phenomenal events.
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  There's Sophie, I've seen you on stage, I've seen you on stage.
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  And now to to get the same and my.
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  First type eating sort of virtually face to face.
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  Yeah, there we go in the same rooms many times.
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  Yeah, exactly. And that and that's the old
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  thing. I was like, I've seen you, I've
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  seen you talk a lot, but this is the first time face to face
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  virtually. I would love for you to Share
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  your story because I, I have to be honest, I was inspired by
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  seeing the talent that you have brought into shop talk, the
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  diversity going for 5050 female present like these really cool
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  things. You've made it happen.
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  So before we get to all that, let's let's talk about Sophie
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  for one second about how did you end up becoming the president of
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  Shop Talk and Grocery shops? You're right.
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  No problem. Well, thank you so much for for
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  having me on the podcast, Alex. So you can probably hear from
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  from my accent. I'm not a New Yorker.
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  I'm not an American by nationality.
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  I'm a Scott's group in in Edinburgh.
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  I've spent most of my career in, I would say, the intersection of
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  tech and events. So those are kind of my 2 happy
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  places. So I've worked in AD tech,
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  fintech, worked, gone kind of outside of events and worked in
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  a couple of startups in this sort of virtual learning space,
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  be part of a VC for a little while.
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  But really that's my very happiest place is right at the
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  intersection of tech and events. So I have always kind of segued
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  in and out of that world. And I spent six years leading
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  Money 2020 in Europe, which is one of the biggest fun tech
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  events globally. And that was kind of how I made
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  my way into Shop Top World. So I joined Shop Top a couple of
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  years ago, moved to New York from the UK, and have been so
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  warmly welcomed into retail world.
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  But I don't think I'll be looking back.
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  So, yeah, and have this most wonderful job in retail, I think
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  because we get to sit at this really wonderful intersection
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  where we just meet every single fascinating person in retail it
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  feels like, especially at this time of year.
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  So, so that was kind of my quick journey through, but yeah, it
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  was starting off in events world and then kind of fighting my way
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  up into these these beautiful, big innovative tech products.
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  If you could go back to the Sophie who had just finished at
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  Cambridge all those years ago, 10 years or 15 years, kind of.
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  I'm not going to. However long.
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  Ballpark, yeah. What would you say to that,
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  Soph? Because I have a lot of, I try
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  and sort of encourage allyship, but I, I know it's really
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  difficult for female leaders and the path to becoming a leader
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  has been difficult. So what would you say to that,
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  Sophie? Yeah, it's a really, really good
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  question, Alex. We think about it quite a lot
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  actually, especially in the context of thinking about how we
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  can present female leaders on our stages.
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  So I think about this this topic around female leadership quite a
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  lot. I think for me that the biggest
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  lesson I've learned is and, and maybe quite a straightforward 1
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  actually, but it's around authenticity.
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  I think it's, it's really tempting to think that with, you
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  know, that there's some strides being made towards more women in
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  in leadership roles that the goal is then to somehow emulate,
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  you know, and I think actually that's, that's a lesson I've
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  never found to, to work particularly well for me.
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  I've had incredible female leaders above me, but always the
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  way I've thought about it is, you know, I've used it as a
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  learning opportunity, but always had to kind of find my own way
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  of doing things, which doesn't really look like any of the
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  leaders I've worked for actually.
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  So it's a piece of advice I always give to the the
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  incredible women on on my team and around me is to to really
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  think about, you know what, what your kind of authentic path is
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  through and being able to find a way to show up for work every
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  day in a way that feels like yourself.
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  So yeah, it feels very quite a trite one, honestly, Alex.
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  But I think it has made all the difference to me.
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  I think, you know, all the times in my career that I've been
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  trying to be super corporate, for example, which I'm not super
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  corporate. I'm actually working.
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  I love filming today. But but yeah, I'm not a super
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  corporate person, for example. And finding my own path that
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  felt like I could show up for work in a way that felt like me
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  and felt authentic with people I worked with was the thing that
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  really made the difference. I, I think it takes courage.
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  It's only the only reason that can resonate to anyone,
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  especially to myself having worked so much, you have to have
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  courage to be yourself. So I think if you, if you're
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  able to be that brave from early on to embrace you, I think that
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  that's, it's great advice and that and I think that's really
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  cool. Yeah.
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  And try to create that environment for other people as
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  well, right. You know, where it's when you
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  should see people showing up in a way that's maybe different
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  than than the way others show up.
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  And and and allowing that, allowing a safe space for that
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  to be OK. And this is what I've noticed as
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  an attendee of all of these events for 1315 odd years is how
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  you've sort of sparkled that into your two, well, the not 2
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  events. There's there's many events in
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  the year now just going back into the sort of Sophie before
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  she gets to shop talk restaurant, if there's one thing
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  you could go back. So obviously be authentic.
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  That's the the piece of advice that you had.
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  What would you do differently? Be the one thing that you would
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  think you would do differently. Really good question.
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  I try and be a believer in the fact that, you know, everything
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  kind of happens for a reason. So I look back at all the
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  different roles I've had and think it was there for a
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  purpose. I think it's really tempting
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  when you're in your 20s, I think to want to sort of try
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  everything. And I do think that that is
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  quite a good approach. But I think for personally, I
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  kind of knew when I'd found my happy space that I knew it was
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  an event. So I kind of, I kept sort of
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  drifting out of it and trying other things and then coming
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  back into it. And I think actually I got a lot
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  from sources finding that landing pad that felt good to
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  me. And so I think it was kind of
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  maybe that's the piece of advice I would give myself actually is
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  to just kind of trust my guts a little bit more and, and not to
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  kind of have to do, do things just because that's what, you
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  know, that's what everybody's doing is, you know, move jobs
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  every two years and, you know, no more value and make sure
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  you're getting that value from the companies you work for.
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  But actually just to really kind of appreciate that, you know, I
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  kind of know I found my happy place and trust my God on it. 22
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  good Nuggets and we'll move on because I really want to dive
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  into your these two sort of flagship events for you grocery.
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  We'll start with grocery shop and then we'll go to shop talk
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  41 of the main questions I have when when I'm talking to people
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  about these events, people still surprisingly are a little bit
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  confused. Who is grocery shop for?
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  I've I was looking at your actually, I'll share it here.
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  Here we go. So we've got a grocery shop
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  coming next Monday right the 7th, so till.
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  I had one next Tuesday. Sorry, close now So.
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  Who, who? Who's this event for?
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  Yeah. It's a really good question.
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  So grocery shop is for anyone who is thinking about innovation
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  within the grocery and CPG space.
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  That means that it can be anybody who's in a tech role, in
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  a marketing role. They can be on the retailer
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  side, they can be in consumer facing brands, they can be on
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  the technology provider side. But all of them are kind of
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  aligned around the same thing, which is they're people who are
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  not happy with the status quo and want to drive things
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  forward. So that typically tends to be
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  the thing that unites all of our delegates is that kind of urge
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  to do better, the urge to make the world smoother or more
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  efficient or more customer centric than it is right now.
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  So yeah, so that the the delegates come from a huge range
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  of backgrounds, but those are kind of the big three buckets I
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  would say is you know people working in kind of innovation
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  and marketing and tech roles within grocers, within CPG type
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  brands and and then also on the tech provider side.
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  So that's kind of our three big buckets of audience.
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  Yeah, I think there's there's a message I was just sharing
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  there. There's a testament to how you
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  know good or successful your event has been by the number of
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  CE OS that come to speak at Europe.
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  I'm like, what's the what's the what's the logic there?
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  So when you think about those three people that sort of come
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  to shop, grocery shop, what would you like them to leave
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  with? So they're on the plane home
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  somewhere in the US because they're going to have to, it's
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  from Las Vegas, fly somewhere. What would you like them to be
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  thinking as they fly home? So I think there's a few
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  different things that we try and set up to kind of let people
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  take their own journeys and, and frankly, people come for really,
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  really different reasons. So there's a lot of people who
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  come to learn and that might be learning from what's going on on
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  stage, but it might also be learning more typically actually
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  from their peers, you know, as they as they navigate the event
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  themselves. And I think for those people,
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  it's really about getting a glimpse of what the future could
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  be. That's the thing that I love
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  hearing that we've left people with is it's something a little
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  bit more tangible than inspiration, I think.
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  But it's that kind of feeling of actually something really
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  extraordinary as possible. That kind of that there's
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  there's a big gap between what we are doing, what we could be
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  doing. So kind of a sense of really
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  sparking people's imagination and then giving them the
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  connections to actually make that real.
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  So that's quite a big part of it.
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  I think there is a a really big piece of it as well.
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  That's about sounds quite pride, Matthew, but kind of efficiency.
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  You know, we really love people think.
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  Yeah, exactly. We love efficiency.
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  Yeah, exactly. So we really want people to
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  leave as well. Well, feeling like that was the
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  busiest 3 days of my year, but God was it worth it.
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  You know, that was three or six months of business or months of
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  learning that happened in that period of time.
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  So we want people to leave feeling exhausted, frankly, full
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  of new connections, new ideas, all of that kind of stuff.
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  We want people to, I love having done it as well.
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  You know, we spend a lot of time thinking about how, you know,
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  the delivery mechanism, you know, for all of our, our
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  content and our networking to make sure that it's, that it
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  feels really fun and organic and, and natural for people.
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  I mean, networking is such a an unnatural activity for so many,
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  I tell you. Why?
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  Yeah. So we really try and create, you
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  know, create all those wonderful opportunities for it to actually
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  just feel easy and simple and like you're surrounded by the
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  people who get you and get how you see the world and are on the
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  same mission that you are. So those are the kinds of things
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  that we love to to leave people feeling when they when they
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  leave the show. Final question on grocery shop
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  before we go to the shop. Look, I know you would have
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  started planning this literally the day after the show last
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  year. Yeah.
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  What's 1 of the surprising things?
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  As you've gone through the year and you've been talking to the
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  CEOs and, and you know you've been talking to potential
• 10:25
  speakers and your team, what's one thing that surprised you in
• 10:29
  the planning of of this year's show?
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  Yeah, that's a really good question, Alex.
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  I think, I think for me, it's been around the this really
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  strong desire that we can feel from the community to actually
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  feel more like a global grocery community, which has been
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  really, really interesting. So every conversation we have
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  typically ends the same way when we say, you know, what could we
• 10:48
  add more of into the show that you haven't seen or that would
• 10:51
  add value that you don't get elsewhere.
• 10:53
  You're over and over again from people that they want to see the
• 10:56
  best of what's going on in other parts of the world.
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  So a lot of people very interested in grocery in Asia,
• 11:02
  for example, you know, we see a lot of Americans who really want
• 11:05
  to get into what's going on in different specific parts of
• 11:08
  Europe and vice versa. So that's been really
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  interesting for us because grocery shop has been to date
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  quite a North American event. And you see on the agenda is
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  still, you know, about 75% N American.
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  And but we can feel this really, really strong desire to to get
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  this kind of real useful mix of global case studies.
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  That's something we're going to be really doubling down on for
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  next year is bringing a much more international audience
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  together. But there's been really
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  interesting to see and to hear some of those case studies, you
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  know, people are aware of, of really interesting grocery
• 11:39
  innovation that they'd love to see Brock's.
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  Life I 100%. I think grocers always want to
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  know what's happening around the world and what, what should they
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  be prepared for having worked with two of the big ones for,
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  for, for such a long time? Okay, shop talk 4 And and this
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  is the crazy thing. It's not enough that you've just
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  got over one massive event. You're going over to you're this
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  is the first time you're having a a fall event, right?
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  It is, yeah. So we have had in in the
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  calendar for the last two or three years.
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  We've had three events. So we've had Shop Talk Spring,
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  which is our kind of flagship in Las Vegas.
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  We've had grocery shopping in the autumn time in the fall, and
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  we've had Shop Talk Europe, which is in the summer in
• 12:20
  Barcelona. But this year, yes, we've got a
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  new, a new baby in the family. So Shop talk fall, this is the
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  first time we're running it in Chicago.
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  So again, for us, it's it's a very different kind of event
• 12:31
  that we've done before, a different location, different
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  feel different by very much the kind of the shop talk, you know,
• 12:36
  and love in terms of the seniority of speakers.
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  You know, the the the big, big starry names on the agenda who
• 12:43
  are going to be talking about some, you know, really, really
• 12:45
  candid insights into what's going on in their businesses,
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  the fun, the parties, all the bat stuff, all of the stuff that
• 12:50
  kind of make shop talk. Shop talk is there, but we're
• 12:52
  having a lot of fun with, you know, seeing what that what this
• 12:54
  product can be when we take it a outside of Las Vegas and B have
• 12:58
  a slightly different focus for it.
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  So I mean, shot talk in the spring is typically known as it
• 13:03
  isn't an e-commerce event, but we do really often get described
• 13:06
  as an e-commerce event. You know, we do, we do cover the
• 13:09
  full sort of unified commerce journey, but it is kind of known
• 13:12
  primarily for its online focus. So we've actually kind of gone
• 13:16
  the opposite way for shot talk fall.
• 13:17
  We're leaning a little bit more heavily into in store content
• 13:20
  and that end of the unified commerce journey and bringing
• 13:23
  together some really different folks to have different kinds of
• 13:25
  conversations. It's a slightly more senior and,
• 13:27
  you know, slightly smaller group but but kind of more seniorly
• 13:30
  audience in that 1. So be really interesting to have
• 13:33
  a different, yeah, new member of the family.
• 13:35
  I got you and and Jar Rule's not going to be flying over to
• 13:37
  Chicago to do a. Chicago no.
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  So we've got jar rule is is is staying in in Vegas with grocery
• 13:44
  shopping. We've got Busta Rhyme is coming
• 13:45
  to do Chicago. So is that is that being
• 13:47
  released? Because I haven't seen an e-mail
• 13:49
  on that. Hot you can rub it first.
• 13:53
  Who makes all of these decisions on on who you will have that.
• 13:57
  Yep. I think you had Sister Sledge
• 13:59
  in. Box loading, yeah.
• 14:03
  Ludacris in spring, and now you've got Ja Rule and Busta
• 14:07
  Rhymes. Like and Busta rings, Yeah, we
• 14:09
  did actually had to find a great photo of the two of them
• 14:11
  together performing. So yeah, we used that with the
• 14:14
  team when we announced it to the team who were who we had.
• 14:17
  What's the logistics on Shop Talk 4?
• 14:20
  I forget the name of the centre. What's the name of?
• 14:21
  The centre, it's McCormick Place, yeah.
• 14:23
  So it's a, it's a really fantastic venue.
• 14:26
  It's part of the venue that we're in is brand new, just
• 14:30
  opened really recently, beautiful kind of, you know,
• 14:33
  very different feel. It's actually gonna feel, I
• 14:35
  think a little bit more like our Barcelona show.
• 14:36
  Vegas hotels are kind of one. It feels like the festival.
• 14:40
  It feels. Yes, yeah.
• 14:41
  Right. And I remember everyone talks
• 14:43
  about retailers therapy, therapy as theatre.
• 14:47
  Maybe, but. Yeah, the fact I know I'm
• 14:49
  letting the car out of the bag, you know, retailers therapy for
• 14:52
  me. But anyway, it's, it's this sort
• 14:53
  of whole theatre that you, it takes you, sweeps you away.
• 14:59
  As you said, it does help you disconnect from where you are.
• 15:01
  It does help you network and it's very unique in the stuff
• 15:04
  that it's bringing to the industry.
• 15:05
  So thank you for that, because as I said, having soggy
• 15:09
  sandwiches in between books have been a massive.
• 15:13
  Yeah, yeah. We're going to join a queue
• 15:16
  that's like a mile, mile long. We've got 5 minutes left.
• 15:19
  I know it's crazy to talk about the future because literally
• 15:22
  we've got these two massive flagship events for you that are
• 15:26
  happening. But when you because you are
• 15:28
  looking at, I mean next year's Barcelona is already doing next
• 15:31
  year's what, how do you see the future growing on your E note
• 15:35
  speakers? What are the other themes that
• 15:38
  are sort of what do you see? What do you see?
• 15:40
  It's a really good question. So there are a couple of big
• 15:43
  things that are going on in our world, some of the kind of new
• 15:46
  bits and pieces that we're launching.
• 15:48
  And then others are kind of like you just described kind of the
• 15:51
  mission that we're on, I suppose.
• 15:52
  So kind of in the first category, we've got two big
• 15:54
  things coming up in the next 18 months.
• 15:57
  So 1 is the new market, which is the event kind of the show
• 16:02
  within a show that we're launching at Shot Talk Spring in
• 16:04
  Las Vegas, which is the new home for retail media.
• 16:07
  So we're very excited about that event.
• 16:10
  It's going to be incredible. I was actually just looking at
• 16:13
  the visuals for it a couple of days ago, and it's shaping up
• 16:15
  really beautifully. So yes, so the future home for
• 16:18
  Retail media is the new market at Shot Top.
• 16:20
  So that's coming up in March. And then we actually have this
• 16:24
  one Super Hopper hot of the press and a little bit like wink
• 16:27
  wink Secret Secret Squirrel. We have a new launch coming up
• 16:31
  in early 2026, which I'll be able to talk about very soon.
• 16:35
  So I'll tell you about it. I promise.
• 16:36
  I'll we're on site in Chicago. But yeah, so a new a new launch,
• 16:40
  which is more like grocery. So a vertical specific event,
• 16:44
  OK. I won't appreciate anyone.
• 16:49
  And then in the in the sort of mission direction, yeah, I mean
• 16:52
  it's it's a really big focus for us.
• 16:54
  So you can see from the lineup for Chicago and but also from
• 16:58
  all the speaker lineups that we are pushing a diversity agenda
• 17:02
  very, very which. Is really difficult, right?
• 17:04
  Because. It's yours, yeah.
• 17:06
  Fucking the industry because the industry isn't made with 50%
• 17:09
  parity in the boardroom. Correct.
• 17:12
  Super difficult, but good on you for doing it.
• 17:15
  Yeah. And I think our point was you
• 17:17
  see a lot of a shocking number still of mammals.
• 17:23
  You see it, you know, really, really sort of shockingly so.
• 17:27
  And so the, the challenge that I gave the team for for Shop Talk
• 17:30
  fall was OK, I know you can do 5050.
• 17:32
  We've done 5050 at almost all of our shows in the last 2-3 years.
• 17:37
  So I know you can do that. Can you go one more just to kind
• 17:41
  of, you know, throw the gauntlet for others, I suppose, you know,
• 17:43
  just to prove the point. I don't want anybody to be able
• 17:45
  to be in a position to say it's not possible.
• 17:47
  So what the team have done is it's an all female speaker
• 17:50
  lineup. So you can have a look at the
• 17:51
  lineup. The lineup is just as strong as
• 17:54
  or would any other female. This is shot at fall.
• 17:57
  We have CEO of Glossier, CEO of Build-a-bear, we have COO of
• 18:02
  Ulta Beauty, we have just incredible lineup, Chief data
• 18:06
  officer and chief loyalty officer for McDonald's.
• 18:08
  The lineup is stellar. It's just as good as any lineup
• 18:10
  we've ever had, but it's all women.
• 18:14
  And actually for shots outfall, we're actually it's we're at a
• 18:16
  6040 gender balance for that one.
• 18:19
  And that's not something that we need to do every single time.
• 18:21
  But I really wanted to have, you know, a case to be a case study
• 18:25
  of just, you know, to lay down the gauntlet for the industry,
• 18:27
  just that it is possible, It is possible.
• 18:29
  You do have to work at it to kind of, you know, to to put the
• 18:32
  right mix of people on stage to do the kinds of things that
• 18:34
  we're wanting to do. But it's absolutely possible if
• 18:36
  you work at it. So so yeah, we do a couple of
• 18:39
  other things like that. We have free childcare every
• 18:42
  single one of our shows. Now, again, for that same kind
• 18:45
  of inclusion message. We want to make sure that
• 18:47
  anybody who wants to come to the show can come to the show and
• 18:50
  get access to the learning and the content and the networking.
• 18:52
  And so a couple of big things like that that we're doing to
• 18:54
  just make sure that the shows are as open as they can be and
• 18:57
  that they're displaying the best of what retail can be.
• 19:00
  You know, not reflecting the industry that we see around us
• 19:03
  necessarily at all times that, you know, we're not afraid of
• 19:06
  sort of shaping moulding a little bit.
• 19:08
  So yeah, that's our intention is to try and kind of display the
• 19:11
  the retail industry in the best possible way it could be so that
• 19:14
  people can see what it what it could be if we worked at it.
• 19:17
  I'll say it for you, you're setting a new standard.
• 19:19
  Thank you. I'm I'm.
• 19:21
  I see it as someone who who turns up to these things around
• 19:24
  the world. I'm going to be super respectful
• 19:26
  to your time. As I said, I'm sure there's a
• 19:28
  queue of things that need to get resolved before before.
• 19:31
  Not sleep fun things at this point actually.
• 19:33
  But yeah, there is a long shopping list of things that we
• 19:36
  need to get sorted. Appreciate.
• 19:37
  That's fantastic, Sophie, Thank you so much for taking the time
• 19:40
  to talk to us. Thank you so much and I look
• 19:41
  forward to seeing you on stage in a week's time.
• 19:44
  Yeah, lovely speaking. Thank you.