What's Keeping Retail CEOs Awake at Night in 2026? | World Retail Signals

World Retail Signals is a new global retail intelligence show co-produced by
The Retail Podcast and World Retail Congress — a monthly look at the top retail
narratives shaping executive thinking around the world.

This prelude episode goes behind the scenes of World Retail Congress 2026,
happening in Berlin, April 2026. Host Alex Rezvan is joined by Ian McGarrigle,
founder and chair of World Retail Congress, to discuss:

→ Why Berlin was chosen as the 2026 host city (and what Zalando has to do with it)
→ The theme for WRC 2026: Retail's Roadmap to 2030
→ How retail has shown extraordinary resilience across 20 years — financial
crash, e-commerce disruption, Covid, and now AI
→ What aspiring retail executives will take from the Congress
→ The short-term vs long-term pressures facing retail CEOs right now
→ Why geopolitics, inflation, and technology are converging in 2026

⏱️ CHAPTERS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
00:00 Introducing World Retail Signals
01:30 Who is Ian McGarrigle?
03:20 The origin story of World Retail Congress
06:10 20 years of retail: resilience as the constant
09:45 Why Berlin for WRC 2026?
13:00 What young retail executives will gain from the Congress
17:30 WRC's Accelerator Programme for rising leaders
20:45 Retail's Roadmap to 2030 — the theme for this year
24:30 What CEOs will leave Berlin thinking about
27:00 Preview of World Retail Signals weekly show
🗓️ World Retail Congress 2026 | Berlin | April 2026

https://www.worldretailcongress.com/

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