61st International Retail Summit

Rolando Benedick

Chairman of the Board of Directors of Valora. Rolando Benedick learned his metier from scratch and is now one of the most profound authorities on retailing in general and the department store business in particular.

Herbert Bolliger

President of the Executive Board of the Federation of Migros Cooperatives (MGB) for the last five years. A graduate in business administration, he has held various positions in close to 25 years at Migros, including head of Migros-Aare, the largest Migros cooperative.

David Bosshart

CEO of the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute, one of Europe‘s leading think tanks for business and society. The focuses of David Bosshart‘s work are trade, consumption, management and social change. He is the host of the conference.

Maurice Calanca

Former member of the Management Board of Manor AG, has 30 years' experience in retail. Calanca is owner and CEO of marketing and more and sense communication factory. He develops strategies, shop design concepts and global communications concepts for retailers.

Sam Dickson

Head of Brand Development & Product Innovation for the British supermarket chain Waitrose. Dickson spent her entire career in retail, working for blue chip retailers such as B&Q or Sainsbury’s in a number of senior positions.

Marcel Dietrich

The CEO of Globus, has been responsible for Globus / Herren Globus since 2002. Dietrich has a PhD in Business Administration and extensive experience in retail. He has worked for Interio, Globus Office World and Manor in Switzerland and Germany in various managerial positions.

Stéphane Garelli

Professor at both IMD and the University of Lausanne and a world authority on competitiveness. Formerly managing director of the WEF, he also heads the World Competitiveness Center and is chairman of the newspaper Le Temps. He is a member of several boards and institutes.

Richard Hyman

Strategic Retail Adviser to Deloitte. He is one of the UK’s most influential retail analysts, with over 25 years of experience in this sector and is the founder of Verdict Research, a leading provider of analysis to the retail industry.

Andrew R. Jennings

CEO of Karstadt since 2011. Jennings is a highly accomplished global retail executive with over 35 years of achievement at some of the world’s most respected high-end, speciality stores including Holt Renfrew, CAN, Saks Fifth Avenue, USA, Harrods and House of Fraser, UK.

Wendy Liebmann

Founder and CEO of WSL Strategic Retail, a firm well known for studying and predicting consumer shopping behaviour. WSL combines astute observations of retail with consumer research to predict where shoppers will be shopping in the next few years.

André Maeder

Since 2009, CEO of fashion chain Charles Vögele, where the trained retail administrator had already worked from 1989 to 1995. In the intervening fifteen years, the expert on the European fashion business worked at Harrods, S. Oliver and Hugo Boss.

Lovro Mandac

Chairman and Chief Executive of Galeria Kaufhof, a leading department store chain in Europe. Born in Flensburg, Mandac was elected Vice President of the German Retail Federation in 2010. He actively promotes the revitalization of inner cities.

Reiner Pichler

CeO of the Holy Fashion Group/Strellson since 1994. The retail specialist started his career with Boss menswear. Before being invited by the former owners of Boss to join their Strellson company, he had been CEO of Gruppo Finanziario Tessile in Turin.

Carsten Schloter

CEO of Swisscom since 2006. Before joining Swisscom Mobile in 2000, the business manager held a number of leading positions at Mercedes Benz France and Debitel Deutschland. Schloter is chairman of the board of Fastweb S.p.A., Milan.

Marc Schumacher

Chief Retail Officer Tom Tailor Holding. After completing the Hugo Boss training programme at Hugo Boss AG he joined the Breuninger Group, where he was responsible for marketing and communication.

Marije Vogelzang

Pioneer and grande dame of "eating design". She is a graduate of the Design Academy in Eindhoven and has a design studio of her own in Amsterdam. Her projects are discussed worldwide.

Christian Wanner

Co-founder of Leshop and CEO since 2000. after graduating from the HEC Lausanne he worked for Procter & Gamble in corporate finance, advertising and brand management. Wanner is a member of the council of experts for the e-Government strategy of the Swiss Federal Council.

Clemens Weisshaar

Designer and co-founder of Kram/Weisshaar. The Wallpaper Magazine and Design Miami/Basel called Weisshaar and Kram "Designers of the Future". Their latest commission was the design/assembly of the installation "Outrace" on Trafalgar Square for the London Design Festival.