The Retail Leadership Lens

In today’s retail landscape, where disruption feels like the new normal, there’s immense pressure to fill a leadership gap immediately. But a hasty permanent hire often adds more instability to an already turbulent situation. With recent data showing that the average time to hire for a permanent role in the UK is over a month and often much longer for senior positions, that’s a long time to leave a critical function exposed. This is where the strategic use of an interim leade

Your company’s AI strategy will likely fail. So what separates that successful minority from everyone else? It often comes down to a new type of leader: the "Head of AI." From my conversations with boards, it’s clear this leader’s success depends less on their technical skills and more on their ability to operate as a true business leader. This is especially true as powerful new tools like Agentic AI, which can automate entire workflows, raise the stakes even higher.

The most powerful person in the room is rarely the one speaking the most. We call this quality ‘gravitas’. It’s a word that can feel a bit old-fashioned, but it’s the defining factor in moments that truly matter: navigating a difficult turnaround, steering a major transformation, or holding the line in a tense board negotiation. In a world saturated with noise, gravitas is what gives your voice weight. So, how do we cultivate it?