Conscious Leaders are incredibly aware of themselves, others, and the influence they have on situations, events, and people. I support people in being highly responsive verses reactive in the life that they lead to ensure they bring their full and authentic self to the world.

I am the Founder and CEO of Vicki Bradley & Company and WIL Empowered, a Professional Certified Coach (PCC), Energy Leadership Index Assessment Master Practitioner (ELI-MP), Certified in Conversational Intelligence (CIQ), and Emotional Intelligence (EQi 2.0).

What stands me apart from most coaches is that I am a seasoned Executive with 25+ years’ experience in leading high performing teams in the retail industry across North America. I’ve held progressive roles with iconic retailers which include: President of the Bombay Furniture Company in Canada while simultaneously leading the store organization as VP Sales and Operations for Bombay US, SVP of Sales and Operations with Marks and Spencer’s, VP of Sales and Operations with luxury retailer Holt Renfrew (Hr2) and held progressive roles within the Woolworth Organization across North America. I sat on the Board of Directors for the Retail Council of Canada, Party Packagers, and OSI tile.

My passion has always been with supporting and stretching individuals beyond what they believe themselves capable of, creating environments that are co-creative for learning, and supporting others to see their greatness. I became a coach so that I could have an impact on more individuals in this world but especially women.

Are you ready to step into your greatness?

David is the Founder and CEO of The Poirier Group, a boutique management consulting firm focused on strategy execution, operational efficiency and sustainable business transformations for clients across the retail, private equity, manufacturing and healthcare sectors in North America. He provides oversight and perspective acquired from 25+ years of successful C-Suite experience across major National and International organizations. David works with leaders to create and translate strategic roadmaps into actionable goals, helping organizations achieve their full potential. He thrives at running multiple global divisions in complex and everchanging business environments and effecting positive cultural shifts that impact bottom line performance.

Jackie Charest is an established marketing executive with both retail and wholesale experience. Formerly the Vice President of Marketing & Media Relations for Canadian retailer; Holt Renfrew. Throughout her time at the organization, she led marketing in a number of different cross functional roles and excelled at launching and building brands, whether it was for Holts itself or the many brands it carries.

Today, Jackie is Vice President Marketing for the iconic Canadian footwear brand, Cougar Shoes where she is focused on their digital journey and is responsible for further developing the brand’s position in both the trade and consumer marketplace.

Known as an innovator, she thrives on shaping strategies that bring ideas and vision to life. Jackie has successfully spearheaded several unique partnerships, developed digital strategies and led 360 integrated brand campaigns that consistently delivered positive growth and sales year over year. She is hard wired to think “customer first” and is always striving to create the ultimate in customer experience. Ms. Charest is a Ryerson graduate.

In a world with 500,000 new start-ups each month, Alison is renowned for helping established and emerging companies thrive in increasingly challenging environments.

After a successful career building brands and delivering double digit growth for companies as diverse as Holt Renfrew, Apple, The Home Depot, Tim Hortons, and Rogers to name a few, and building Forerunner – a marketing and brand consultancy – Alison joined Key as Chief Marketing Officer. Key has developed the world’s first all-digital, on-demand homeownership platform that helps renters become homeowners. The beta launched in Toronto last year and Key is now expanding across North America.

An experienced business and marketing strategist, Alison’s background as an award-winning marketer – who brings expertise across a broad range of marketing disciplines – means she has a unique ability to quickly assess the business potential, marketplace, and consumers’ needs to drive powerful results. Alison is one of the few marketers in Canada who is both a brand and performance marketer, which makes her uniquely equipped to grow brand engagement and deliver strong business results.

In her “life beyond work”, Alison is an avid traveller and passionate runner. Alison has completed 60 marathons and ultras, including winning her age group in a 250km Race Across the Sahara Desert and helping to raise $100,000 for the National Advertising Benevolence Society charity in the process. Alison also climbed Mt Kilimanjaro to raise money for the Alzheimer Society.  

She’s active in her industry. Her current Board roles include: Board Director for CNIB Foundation (Ontario & Quebec Regions); and Advisory Board member for Smith School of Business Masters of Management Analytics Program. She was also a past Board Director for MEC (Canada’s leading retail co-op).

As a young girl, Michelle was often found sketching and designing dream spaces in her free time, taking floor plan layouts found in the new home builder section of the newspaper and creating new and functional layouts. Encouraged to follow her passion, she studied in Interior Design and began her career in retail with The Home Depot in 2005.

Through this, she has honed her design and sales capabilities for a diverse customer base and has gone on to receive her designation with the National Kitchen and Bath Association as a Certified Designer. Her involvement with the NKBA inspired her to create a program within her own organization that promotes the development of other Home Depot Designers to achieve their accreditation. Recently, she had the opportunity to volunteer as a judge for a provincial, student design competition and thoroughly enjoyed being part of an event that brought recognition to some new and emerging talent.

In her current role, she leads a dynamic team that supports the growth of the Kitchen + Bath business, consulting on processes to enhance the customer experience and overseeing the training and development of Kitchen Designers nationally.

Lori Bailey is a passionate retail industry leader with broad sales, marketing and operations expertise.She is known for spearheading unique strategies, which have proven to expand retailers target audiences, by building brand centric experiences, focusing on all five senses.

Prior to launching her own company, Just4Women Group, Lori served as Chief Customer Experience Officer and Senior Vice President of Retail Operations for Sears Canada, overseeing 140 retail stores and more than 500 dealer and agent locations.  Lori has held a range of executive positions at well-known retail fashion chains throughout her career including Head of Gap Canada, Advisor to Nine West, Vice-President of Jones New York and Laura Canada, as well as consulting on several projects, including the conception and launch of Tweed Retail for Canopy Growth.  She has an unprecedented track record for growing revenue and profit at every company she has worked for.

Lori has received multiple sales achievement awards from leading Canadian and international retailers.  With 25 years of executive experience, she has intimate knowledge of the Canadian retail landscape and has developed a massive network of talent with core skills in customer engagement, networking, and clientele building. 

When the pandemic hit in 2020, many of the women in her network found themselves unemployed for the first time in their careers, just like 500,000 other women in Canada whose jobs were impacted by Covid 19.  That’s when she and the women in her group took control and launched their own brand, J4W HOME & Gifts, because there’s always a reason to give a gift.  Lori’s vision for Just4Women Group is to provide every woman with the options made simple and the means to style it her way.

Karen Rossetti (she/her), started her career as a front-line LCBO sales associate in the Kitchener-Waterloo area, gained experience as a District Trainer, followed by a developmental opportunity as a Retail Training Consultant until she was promoted to the role of Manager, Customer Service & Store Support. In 2004, Karen was promoted as Director, Store Operations & Support and over the years, has lead everything from Retail Strategic Planning, Customer Care, Retail Succession Planning, Store Operations, Retail Learning & Development, Retail Financial Planning, Procurement & Analysis, Customer Engagement as well as Retail Health & Safety.

Karen has been in the role of Senior Director, Store Operations & Support since the summer of 2021 and reports directly to the LCBO’s Chief Retail Officer, John Summers. She has been with the LCBO for close to 40 years and her current portfolio includes overseeing Customer Engagement, Store Operations, and Customer Care Teams. Karen also partners with the LCBO’s Talent Management Team relative to the operational and product knowledge training of approximately 7000 Retail Division employees.

Karen is a proud mentor to a mentee with the Toronto Region Immigration Employment Centre (TRIEC) Mentoring Partnership.

Channeling an irrepressible energy, passion and love of people, Rick is best known as the co-founder and CEO of Urban Barn, one of the best furniture retailers in Canada. While there, he became known for finding smart and motivated leaders and advisors and empowering them in the business.

Since leaving Urban Barn, Rick has used his experiences to help the next generation of entrepreneurs scale their ventures. This ranges from tactical ideas, such as leveraging pop-ups, to strategic, such as refinancing the business. As a key DIG360 contributor since 2018, Rick expands its breadth of counsel and enhances its trademark “assisted DIY” support to founders and leaders. Philosophies that enabled his own successes thread his advice: a deep focus on customer and employee experience, scalable cultures, creative collaborations, and values-led business.

Advisory includes help for:
– Founders – on what to expect along the “Founders Journey” and how to be accountable to both investors and the brand
– Owners – on scaling the business to exit, navigating equity investment, building winning cultures, and exploring creative collaborations
– Executives of Offshore Brands – on how to “win Canada” while mitigating market risk.

Rick is also available as an on-call part-time CEO in the right situations.

One look at him and you know he is an avid snowboarder and mountain biker, not to mention an all-season golfer.

Karen Malone specializes in ESG strategy, executive training and ESG program design. She started LitPark to help companies and non-profits transition and future proof their business by embedding ESG into their organization and culture. LitPark is also the Canadian Affiliate and Trainer for the global firm, The Centre for Sustainability and Excellence, CSE.

Her experience in ESG is dominant in the “S” and “G”(social and governance) space. For 15 years she has led teams to design and deliver corporate impact programs. Karen is an experienced facilitator of ESG, expanding knowhow for 400+ executives in over 25 different industries.

LitPark clients range from global inter-governmental organizations, media and entertainment companies, real estate firms and health charities. The leaders in these organizations believe that ESG creates value, and their commitment to that belief results in measurable, positive growth.

Corinne Kepper is the Senior Director, Corporate Giving and Voice of Employee at Aritzia.  Aritzia is an innovative design house delivering Everyday Luxury shopping experiences at aritzia.com and in 100+ boutiques throughout North America.

Corinne built Aritzia’s corporate giving program to invest more than $40 million of Aritzia resources to empower women & girls and support mental wellness. She is a champion of employee engagement and leads programs to support delivering a high performing culture.  A seasoned communicator, she established Aritzia’s public relations department to support market entry in New York and Montreal and managed Aritzia’s 2016  IPO communications.

Integrating her business skills and love of design, she successfully led teams at Identica Branding & Design, a division of Cossette Communications and Procter & Gamble.  Corinne is passionate about women’s advancement.  She frequently mentors young women and has served as a Board Director for Dress for Success Vancouver. Corinne earned a Bachelor of Commerce degree at Queen’s University.

15 years into their second career, Christine continues to be passionate about organizational and workplace learning.   Through transitioning from healthcare to learning, she learned the value of volunteering  and seeking opportunities outside of traditional organizations to gain the skills and experience necessary to make big changes.   A learning nerd both professionally and personally, she seizes opportunities to learn and grow.   Their most recent certifications are Mental Health First Aid and Workplace Mental Health Leadership™;  she is also enjoying learning more about restorative justice as she volunteers with the Youth Justice Committee in Durham Region.

Christine leads an incredible team of talented, customer-focused individuals as they support the live and virtual training needs of the Home Depot’s Canadian division.  Christine’s experience in facilitation, instructional design, and learning strategy make her an innovative and creative leader who is motivated to develop people’s skills and career.

Dionisia Lita is the Director – IT Delivery, Business Applications at The Source. She leads her IT team to deliver business applications in the areas of  POS, ERP, WMS, and Finance systems.  She was previously responsible for The Source eCommerce site, and Parts & Repair systems. Dionisia was employed with RadioShack USA, RadioShack Canada, The Source By Circuit City, and now The Source. She led The Source IT team during the transition to Bell, and was the Canada IT Lead for the Circuit City business transformation project. Previously, a member of the team who implemented POS  in Belgium for InterTAN European stores, and the BatteryPlus  acquisition in Canada. She was once a panelist of the International Women’s Day at The Source. 

As an award-winning sales, ecommerce, marketing and technology leader, Sean has over 20 years’ experience in high growth B2B, B2C and C2C industries. 

Prior to founding Engagement Agents, Sean was the Director of Sales & Marketing for Stitch It Clothing Alterations, North America’s largest alterations service provider with 85 locations in major shopping centres.  While helping Stitch It  drive traffic & sales, he discovered a problem; every retailer pays significantly for digital and physical marketing opportunities each month through their leases; via gross rent, CAM fees, marketing/promo/ad funds, merchant association fees and/or percentage rent.

However, only 10% of retailers engage the benefits of these significant investments, collectively costing retailers hundreds of billions in sales every year!

As a result, Sean developed Engagement Agents, www.EngagementAgents.com, a world-class solution to help retailers promptly maximize these already-paid-for opportunities to drive more traffic & sales (in-store and online), prevent lost traffic & sales to competitors, save measurable amounts of time, money and resources while ensuring compliance + the proper cadence of their marketing campaigns!

A number of the world’s most recognizable retailers rely on Engagement Agents’ award-winning solution, including Adidas, Levi’s, Lacoste, Sephora and Nespresso.

Prior to joining Stitch It Sean founded Trend Trunk, Canada’s largest fashion marketplace, which was a finalist for three Canada Post Ecommerce Innovation Awards and Preferred One, one of the largest retailer gift card marketing companies in North America driving hundreds of millions of dollars to retailers.  In addition, Sean was recognized with “Guy Who Gets It” Award by Illuminessence Magazine for valiant contributions to gender equality, social justice and community development.

Ted is Co-Founder of Stream Commerce. Stream Commerce is the fastest growing Shopify Plus e-commerce agency in North America. Stream Commerce serves high growth, high volume Shopify Plus merchants with expert e-commerce consulting, site design & development, site optimization and digital performance marketing.

Lawyer by training, Ted is an e-commerce executive and entrepreneur. Ted started selling online in 1996 – over 25 years of e-commerce experience. Ted built and scaled the QVC of Canada, The Shopping Channel, first taking the business from scratch to over $125m in annual online sales and later as President of The Shopping Channel, building out its multi-channel offering to over $350m in DTC sales.

As an executive operator and agency entrepreneur, Ted has a unique perspective, with a combination of client side, agency side, start-up, public company, private company and private equity backed e-commerce experience. A frequent speaker at retail industry events, Ted loves to share his experience as a digital retail and consumer product innovator.

Rui Rodrigues is a passionate and influential executive with extensive leadership experience overseeing Loss Prevention, Risk Management, Security and Health & Safety at several retail organizations, including HBC, ICI, Best Buy, Staples and Holt Renfrew. He specializes in implementing top performing programs that deliver best in class KPI results, improvement to the bottom line and turnaround of underperforming teams, programs and operations.

Rui has been actively involved with Retail Council of Canada for over 20 years, participating on the Loss Prevention Advisory Committee, helping to organize LP conferences and as an active speaker / presenter and as of July 2021 he joined RCC as the resident Loss Prevention & Risk Management Advisor.

Kate began her journey with RCC through Longo’s in the Risk Management department in 2018, previously specializing in Health and Safety and Food safety for a food service establishment in Sports and Entertainment. Kate quickly expanded her role in 2020 to include Security as an area of responsibility for store operations, and has continued her passion and expertise in all areas of safety and risk, recently taking on workplace claims. Kate has now judged the excellence in loss prevention for the 2^nd year in a row with the RCC Excellence in Retail Awards.

Hassan Chaudhry is responsible for leading the strategic planning and implementation of store development, store design, construction and engineering for the national retail portfolio at Staples Canada. He provides leadership to the construction, fixturing, design and project management teams.

David Thorpe is a high energy, results driven, customer-obsessed marketing professional. who loves working for retail challenger brands. Over the course of 15+ years, he’s held senior marketing roles with Ashley Furniture Canada, London Drugs Limited, one of British Columbia’s most loved brands, and national discount leader, Giant Tiger Stores Limited, where he was responsible for all marketing communications activities to build brand and support growth to over 200 stores across Canada.

David has also run a digital marketing agency and served on a number of industry advisory boards including the RAC in Toronto, CRMC(Chicago), GRMA (FL) and the CMO council of the National Retail Federation.( Washington, DC). He is presently on the board of Capture Photography Festival in Vancouver, BC.

David is an avid cyclist, sailor and photographer. He presently lives and works in Ottawa, Ontario as a Retail Marketing Consultant and teaches Retail Management and Marketing as a professor in the School of Business at Algonquin College.

With over 25 years of professional experience and a degree in Advertising and Illustration from Sheridan college, Laura is multiple award-winning Creative Director with expertise in creative strategy, conceptual development, technology, experience design, social media, and branding across Retail, FI, QSR and Out-of-home. With refined leadership skills Laura directs all phases of creative development—from concept through production—across various media channels, formats, platforms, products and devices. Prior to Cineplex, Laura’s extensive background in advertising spans across a variety of industries that include product launches, radio, print, television campaigns, logo design and corporate identity on a global scale.  

With additional experience as a fine artist and sculptor, Laura is proficient in the art of conceptual development, bringing ideas to life in a manner which commands the audience to take notice. Laura has been featured on CBC Radio’s Metro morning, Breakfast television and was awarded a 2-week Artist’s residency in France. 

David Ian Gray founded DIG360 to help retail and “retail minded” executives deeply understand their customers and their business environments to help discover where healthy growth will next come from – and to transition their organizations accordingly.  David has an innate ability to understand the “human” side of change and tailors the DIG360 approach to work best with cultures and personalities.

In times of change David Ian Gray delivers insight, provocative questions, and new metaphors as catalysts for reinvention.  David helps retail organizations become more relevant to the right target audiences and connect deeply to them.

Senior Executives respect David for his fresh counsel on defining customer-relevance, rethinking customer-experience and tailored roadmaps for evolution. He is a recognized expert on retail and shopper trends, consistently producing high-impact knowledge for over 23 years. He has a rare blend of experience integrating business intelligence: operating and financial data, trends and trend spotting, and various forms of customer and market research.

Amongst other topics, he presents on emerging retail trends, the role of retail in a sustainable future and the need for strategic adaptation and management of innovation.  David has taught senior executives globally for the prestigious London Business School and is widely sought for insight by business media. 

James has been part of the Canadian retail landscape for over 25 years with three iconic Canadian companies; previously Shoppers Drug Mart and Petro-Canada, and currently with Parkland.   In his role with Parkland, James is leading the Canadian Category Management team for Chevron, Fas Gas, UltraMar and Pioneer stores and car washes. 

When asked to describe herself with three words Rosa Magrone would say, resourceful, enthusiastic and courageous. Rosa’s passion for learning comes from a lifelong obsession for reading. From a young age Rosa devoured books by the dozen. Rosa made fast friends with her elementary school librarian Mrs. Desouza and could be found in the school library every day after school and looking for the next great story to read. As an adult Rosa fueled this passion into her purpose and is why she chose to spend the better part of her career in Human Resources and Learning and Development.

As a  Human Resources leader, Rosa is known for strong leaderships, unwavering integrity, and the ability to influence ideas and relationships.  Rosa also has extensive leadership in resource planning, change management and developing leadership development programs while partnering with leadership teams to collaboratively move the organization forward. In her current role as the Manager, Leadership Development & Solution Rosa is responsible for designing and facilitating the Home Depot Leadership Curriculum for people leaders across Canada.

Michael is an international strategic sustainable development expert, with 20 years’ experience across North America, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia. Over the past decade, working with the public and private sectors in corporate development, government relations and advisory capacities, his efforts have been focused on opportunities and risks related to sustainability, circular economy and climate change. He has formerly worked with Reclay StewardEdge as Senior Vice President and Ernst & Young as Director, Climate Change & Sustainability Services. Michael has also held sustainable development advisory roles with the United Nations Social Commission and British Colombia’s Ministry of Environment.

As VP of Marketing & Account Management for Call2Recycle Canada, Jon leads the Marketing and Account Management strategy and execution to enhance the company brand and increase public education and awareness. Jon oversees all advertising, media, public relations, communications, special events, and account partner programs to continue raising awareness of the importance of end-of-life battery recycling. Jon joined Call2Recycle Canada in October 2020, bringing over 15 years of B2B and B2C experience in multi-unit retail and hospitality.

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. 

Andrew is a seasoned Technology Executive with a history of identifying and leading successful business transformation programs.  His background includes leading teams at Bell Canada and The Source to deliver new business capabilities, enhanced sales and productivity, and world-class customer service.  Since leaving The Source, Andrew has set up shop as an Executive Consultant, serving Retail, Telco, Health Care and Alternative Energy sector executives with both Senior Advisory strategy services as well as hands on leadership.  He is known as a listener, consensus builder, visionary and driver of technological innovation that enables his customers to thrive.  His interests include anything tech and acting on climate change.

Gary has established an international reputation for rapid business performance improvement and executing supply chain designs which consistently build marketplace prominence, shareholder value and consumer trust.

Gary helps Boards and Business Leaders to become more Supply Chain Agile, Innovative and Digital across the “make-move-sell” flow of Manufacturing, 3rd Party Logistics, Wholesaling, Retailing & The Last Mile.

When it comes to diagnosing and resolving mission critical issues, armed with multiple operational turnarounds and strategic transformations completed, Gary helps executives navigate disruption and reinvigorate supply chain performance by aligning Processes, Systems, Architecture, Culture and Metrics to drive enduring competitive advantage.

Gary is a sought after thought leader, facilitator, speaker, podcaster and trainer in “Retail Supply Chains & The Last Mile” by many professional bodies. Recently awarded Supply Chain Canada’s “Top 40 Immigrants impacting on Supply Chains” and recognised for his creative thinking via CITT’s “2020 Innovator Award”, Gary has also been recognised as one of “Rethink Retail’s Top 100 Global Retail Influencers for both 2021 and 2022”.

Gary has an MBA and an MSc (Supply Chain Management & Logistics) from Cranfield University and is recently CCLP, CSCMP, PMP, LSSBB and Retail Management certified.

Kevin Graff is the President of Graff Retail, based in Toronto, Ontario.  Since 1988, Graff Retail has specialized in working with retailers around the globe to increase their revenue through improved staff performance. 

Kevin is widely respected as one of North America’s best retail speakers and trainers and was recently chosen as one of the Top 50 Retail Influencers.  His principle belief is that retailers are losing too many sales each day in their stores that they should be capturing.   Kevin’s approach to store operations and his intense focus on real, bottom-line issues continually produce outstanding results. 

Kevin is also the creator of Graff Retail TV, the retail community’s leading source of online sales and management training.  Since being launched in 2008, Graff Retail TV has provided thousands of sales associates and store management teams with the skills they need to succeed.