A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of catching up with Alison Hutchinson CBE, chief executive of Pennies. Even if you haven’t heard of Pennies yet, there’s a good chance you’ll have used its platform – the...

This has been an exciting week in Primrose Hill! Just down the road, in Chalk Farm, a new Amazon Fresh store has opened its doors, giving customers – and those of us at MBS visiting our offices – the chance to...

The retail sector needs to do more to drive up female and ethnic minority representation in the most senior positions. In this first-of-its-kind report, produced in partnership with British Retail Consortium and PwC UK,...

Going back several decades, many retailers across apparel, food, footwear, health, beauty and home owned their own production facilities. In many cases, manufacturing prowess preceded retail stores: shops were simply...

Every year in December I make my annual trip ‘home’ to Cape Town. It is something that I have done for the past 30 years, and this year was no different. But, no sooner had I arrived than the country went into...

If there were a league table of the holders of the most stressful jobs in retail in 2020, then Helen Dickinson, as CEO of the British Retail Consortium, would be near the top. Representing 170 major retailers, who...

When I first moved to London in the late ‘80s, I lived in a one-roomed apartment on Chalcot Square, Primrose Hill - a stone’s throw away from our office, which, sadly, I have not worked in since the 17th...

Back in March, I wrote my annual column on International Women’s Day, celebrating the inspiring female leaders who had been nominated for the Veuve Clicquot Bold Woman and Bold Future Awards. Sitting on the judging...

Businesses across Asia have been engulfed in managing responses to Covid-19 since early January. Now, months after the initial lockdown period started in the region, there are undoubtedly lessons to be learnt from our...