Meet the speakers

Will Lockie is an experienced digital leader, with a strong track record of growing global premium brands, SME’s and private equity owned businesses, by building teams and products that deliver results. With 15 years in digital and 10 in retail, I find opportunities which unlock customer growth, drive sales and grow the bottom line. He is currently leading the transformation of the global digital function at NOBLE PANACEA and before that he was at Georg Jensen, where digital sales tripled since he joined. Previously, during his tenure at Evans Cycles, he doubled the share of the eCommerce business, which grew from 20% of total sales in 2010, to 40% in 2016.

Peter Williams is currently Chairman of ACS Clothing, the UK’s leading circular fashion enabler; Senior Independent Director at Home REIT plc; non-executive director of SGS UK Retail, which owns the shopping and leisure destinations at Lakeside, Harlequin Watford and Victoria Centre Nottingham; and is also a trustee of both Somerset House and The Architectural Heritage Fund. He has spent over 30 years in a variety of both executive and non-executive positions in consumer-facing businesses. In the retail sector he has worked in eCommerce; department stores; fashion, sportswear, and eyewear multiples; duty-free stores; and mail order. During his executive career, Peter was on the board of Selfridges for 13 years initially as Chief Financial Officer and then as Chief Executive, during its radical transformation to become the world’s leading department store. Following Selfridges, he was the Chief Executive of Alpha Airports Group plc, which operated duty free retailing and airline catering businesses in 15 countries. Peter has played a major role in the rapid growth of 3 international retailers with a significant online presence – as a non-executive at ASOS and as Chairman at both boohoo and Mister Spex.

Peter Cross is a leading authority on serving customers in a changing world.  After 20 years in London, Paris and New York and ten more in consultancy, Peter spent eight years in charge of customer experience at the John Lewis Partnership – renowned in the UK for going the extra mile for its customers. Today, Peter champions, consults and campaigns for better customer experience around the world. In  the UK he works with Jo Causon as aVice President at the Institute of Customer Service, is an Ambassador for the Retail Trust and a Leader in Residence at the University of Leeds. Peter’s first book, ‘Start with the Customer’ published at the end of 2025, became an instant bestseller and was referred to by the Grocer magazine as “the essential text on customer experience”

Jo Causon joined The Institute of Customer Services as its CEO in 2009, where she has driven membership growth by 150 percent and established the UK Customer Satisfaction Index as the country’s premier indicator of consumer satisfaction, providing organisations with an indicator of the return on their service strategy investment. Jo focuses on demonstrating a clear link between employee engagement, customer service strategies and organisational performance. Working across the public, private and voluntary sectors she provides strategic advice to Boardrooms to raise the standards of service provided by UK organisations and to provide evidence of the connection between customer satisfaction and operational efficiency and profitability.

Susannah Schofield OBE is the Director General of the Direct Selling Association, the industry body for direct-to-consumer (D2C) retail in the UK. Prior to this, she spent 18 years at Royal Mail, culminating in her holding the Board-level role of Commercial & Innovation Director, where she led a team of 300. A passionate advocate for women and young people in business, Susannah was awarded an OBE for her work in this area in the 2015 Queen’s Honours List. She continues to champion women in business, and is a regular speaker on the importance of flexible working and portfolio careers. As well as being a published author (of business strategy book Mind the Gap), Susannah has lectured for The University of Kent and City, University of London, and also served as an advisor to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).

Desi Reuben-Sealey is currently working as a Senior UX Manager at Victorinox and was the Senior UX/UI Designer for Debenhams until very recently. He offers a hands-on UX approach, to coach, mentor, grow and lead the design team in delivering a great digital product that crosses over the whole business. He has evolved the design language, utilised leadership skills to evolve the experience design strategy that supports the innovation and product streams of the organisation. Above all, Desi has established and evangelised UX methodologies, whilst embedding them as best practice and collaborating with other areas of the business, to make great UX a reality for debenhams.com.

Linda Campbell has a track record of driving business change and transformation gained in health and beauty brands. Passionate about creating a positive culture whilst delivering results, she is a custoner champion with expensive experience gained in value led founder omnichannel businesses. 

Having started in retail at 16, Emily Mackay-Wright worked for Monsoon Accessorize, where she worked up to Cluster Manager, looking after three stores whilst finishing off her A-levels. Having then spent a summer volunteering on an environmental project,, she started working at Bravissimo when she turned 19.  For 18 months, Emily volunteered as a Special Constable in the evening, whilst being an Assistant Manager during the day. Working through the various leadership roles in retail, she then moved over to the People & Culture team, where she was Learning Manager, focused on development and performance across the organisation. Emily has also chaired Bravissimo’s Belonging Group and has a passion for driving inclusion and belonging. After 20 years, and eight different roles, she  is now the Customer Experience Manager, looking after an award-winning omnichannel customer service team, who provide exceptional experiences through virtual fittings, live chat and Calls to customers worldwide. 

Matthew Bourne is Retail Director at COOK Trading and has worked at COOK for many years, where he continues to have dedication to the company’s mission of providing remarkable meals, with great customer hosting, along with maintaining shop operational excellence. As a key figure in the business, Matthew played a pivotal role in COOK’s recognition as Retailer of the Year at the 2024 People in Retail Awards. He is a seasoned retail leader and has been part of COOK from the near beginning and has seen it grow from just a couple of shops to become a national retailer with over 100 shops (and growing) across the UK. Matthew has a reputation for obsessing over customer experience, and has been the driving force in making sure COOK delivers outstanding service in the communities it operates in. He has helped COOK develop a strong team culture, with shop teams who are happy and engaged and feeling part of the family, whether they work in the Glasgow or Guernsey shop.

Danielle Sones has been Managing Director at Mystery Shopping and CX Measurement agency, ABa Quality Monitoring, since 2023, having joined the business in 2000. As MD, she leads ABa’s work with major Retail, Financial Services, Leisure & Hospitality and FMCG businesses. She combines business leadership – designing and implementing award winning MS, CX and compliance programmes – with insight on how service excellence drives customer engagement, workforce empowerment and business performance. Danielle’s experience has led to her being a sought-after speaker on Mystery Shopping best practice across Europe and being part of the judging panel for the ICS awards since 2015. As well as driving the direction and growth of ABa, Danielle’s day to day expertise goes from boardroom to shop-floor. Her engagement spans from inspiring and collaborating with C-suite executives of major brands and senior management, through operational programme leads, to the on-the-ground execution of programmes with frontline service teams.

Pim Vellenga is an accomplished leader in Operations Management and Strategic Programme Development, currently working on the physical expansion at Emma Sleep. He is skilled at translating visions and strategies into reality through pragmatism and analytical thinking. Pim has coached various startups in their physical and offline operations, getting their products to the customer. He was responsible for the physical operations expansion of VanMOOF.

Andy Letting most recent role was Interim Head of eCommerce, Digital Marketing and Data at Mr Fothergill’s Seeds. He was previously Interim Head of Data and Insight at MAG (Airports Group and before that the Group Apps & Retention Lead at Kingfisher. A senior digital professional, he is a results driven and commercially focused senior-level digital executive with extensive senior management experience, successful in strategic leadership, change management, digital channel development in the media, gaming and travel sectors.

Bunty Stokes was until recently the Managing Director of Pampeano – inspired by the rich heritage of unrivalled horsemanship and traditional leather work – Pampeano began by sourcing the finest leather polo equipment from local artisans before working closely with them to develop refined leather pieces that were unique, and inspired by the landscape and cherished artisanal techniques. She was prviously Consulting Managing Director at Asquith, eco activewear clothes for yoga. She was Managing Director of Sunuva from 2015-2020. Over the five years that Bunty was there, the company looked to leveraging the sales opportunity in ecommerce – not just in wholesale but to grow and develop the team around that, and scale up for future growth. Prior to that, she ran the UK business at Vente-Privee from 2009-2011, after which she set up her own consultancy firm and worked with companies including eBay and Cocosa. Bunty was previously Sales & Merchandising Director for Brandalley.co.uk from 2007- 2009 and also worked for TKMaxx owners TJX for five years from 2002- 2007, as a Senior Buyer and later as a Divisional Merchandise Manager.

Giles Smith is the former Head of Technology for Selfridges, responsible for the technology strategy and delivery of their Digital, physical retail and omnichannel technology. Prior to that he was the Digital Director for Burberry and has also delivered technology innovation and transformation at John Lewis, Arcadia, Matalan, Unilever, Diageo and more. He is a MACH Alliance founding board member and also a new judge on our prestigious People in Retail Awards 2024. He is currently advising, CTO, CPO, and CDO’s in various world-famous brands on broad aspects of Digital product, technology strategy and leadership.