Never too Late to Win: A Responsive Holiday Strategy

Michael is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. He has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions with C-level executives and participated on thought leadership panels worldwide.

Michael is also the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts, including Canada’s top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail, plus the Remarkable Retail with author Steve Dennis, Global E-Commerce Tech Talks and The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, all available on Apple, Spotify, Amazon and all major podcast platforms.

Over the last 20 years, Samir Kulkarni has built Showcase into a leading specialty retailer recognized as “the home of the hottest trends” with 109 stores in top tier Canadian Malls from coast to coast, and now rapidly expanding its retail footprint across the US to a total of 150 stores in North America by Q4 2022. Under Samir’s leadership, Showcase has been the first bricks-and-mortar retailer to launch game-changing trends in health, beauty, home, toys, tech, and food. Part statistician, part financial investor, part retailer, Samir applies investment methodology and big data principles to traditional retail to create a balanced “mutual fund” of retail trends that have propelled Showcase into a profitable, debt-free, and rapidly expanding company. Samir holds an MBA from Yale University, and lives near Toronto with his wife Divya and their two children.