Star Speakers

It’s been more than obvious to REI – and I think customers too – how resilient and adaptable the retail industry has been, not just through COVID when non-essential retail was shut, but through last year, in terms of the challenges retailers have faced getting back on their feet. They’ve been incredibly responsive, pivoting their business models as necessary. And our Retail Retreat in May is an opportunity to get together and understand what we have learned after such a trying and intense period. The pandemic also showed us how robust the industry is. It was an example of how retailers listened to their customer and adapted their business model to this seismic change that had taken place. Those who were really successful were the ones who used the opportunity when things were di cult, to reinvent themselves and to focus on the new things important to their customers. This was something that shone through in our Retail Excellence Awards in 2022. And there’ll be examples of this in this year’s retreat – great retailers showcasing what they do brilliantly. This retreat is an opportunity to network with people who love the industry, to share ideas and commonality, but also focused around the sharing of stories and experiences. With hundreds gathered together in the one space, we’ve chosen a mixture of experts in retail, to talk across all areas from e-commerce, to retail trends, sustainability and so on. And we’re also bringing in some inspirational keynote speakers, from jewellery designer and entrepreneur Chupi to writer and speaker Brian Pennie, PHD, among others. The pandemic has impacted everybody, so we will have a range of experiences to inspire attendees. In terms of the retreat itself, we’ve chosen The Dublin Royal Convention Centre, a fabulous new venue, only open since January. This also gives us a great opportunity to highlight some of the brilliant new retailers arrived in and around Dublin. Equally, we’ll spotlight existing retailers who have altered their model and are doing things di erently – so it’s a real opportunity for retailers benchmark themselves against what others are doing. And of course we’ll have entertainment and workshops throughout. We are delighted that AIB Merchant Services will be our headline sponsor for the Retail Retreat once again this year. The retreat will be mixture of inspiration, learning, networking, with some fun in the mix.”

Duncan Graham, Managing Director, Retail Excellence

Find out more about our Retail Retreat, taking place on May 30th & 31st, by visiting www.retailexcellence.ie

Sue Harries Digital, Proposition & Data Director

Sue joined the Screwfix board in July 2022 and leads its Digital, Customer Proposition and Data teams. With over 25 years’ experience in retail gained across multiple disciplines, she started her career as a qualified accountant (ACCA) and has held senior roles at Peacocks, AXA, Screwfix & Kingfisher. She first joined Screwfix in 2005 where she worked across Commercial Finance, Marketing and Digital roles, and even ran a Trade Counter during the early roll-out of stores. In 2020, she moved from leading the Screwfix Digital team to Kingfisher as Group E-commerce Director, to support the new group-wide e-commerce strategic direction. Sue is married with two daughters and enjoys paddle boarding and kayaking, taking advantage of living near the south coast.

Chupi Sweetman CEO & Founder of Chupi

After a decade of working in the giants of commercial fashion, Chupi founded her eponymous jewellery line in 2013. Her creative and strategic vision has scaled Chupi to a luxury jewellery brand selling into over 70 countries. Part of the coveted EY EOY Alumni and a Lead Entrepreneur on the KPMG Enterprise Ireland backed Going for Growth program, Chupi is one of Ireland’s leading female founders and is regularly featured in the press. Chupi designs timeless pieces to mark life’s most precious moments. Her award-winning jewellery is destined to become your future heirloom.

Peter Turley Corporate Sales Speaker and Developer

For almost his entire career, Peter Turley has been ripping up rulebooks, and rewriting processes to create greater impact and superior results, being first and foremost a problem solver. Seeing opportunity where others see challenge, he has outshone competitors, weathered recessions, built profitable businesses, raised strong and fiercely loyal teams, and has earned a reputation as “a simply remarkable thinker with a rare ability to inspire”. He now works as a professional speaker and trainer, upskilling his clients in the areas of sales, customer success and market innovation. During the Covid-19 lockdowns, he co-authored and became MD of Sell Squared, the world’s first MBA equivalent in Sales Leadership. Having received numerous awards including The National Enterprise Award for Innovation and an All-Ireland Business ‘All-Star’, Peter’s reflections on his entrepreneurial escapades are funny, insightful, razor-sharp realistic, yet always inspirational.

Brian Pennie, PhD Owner, Change is Possible Limited

Brian Pennie is a former heroin addict turned doctor who’s on a mission to show people change is possible. Since embracing his second chance at life in 2013, he has become a doctor of neuroscience and psychology, a lecturer at Trinity College and University College Dublin, an executive coach to some of Ireland’s most influential leaders, and a consultant to some of the world’s largest organisations (Ernst and Young, Flutter, and Sanofi). He is also a keynote speaker, author, founder and CEO of Change is Possible, and has reached millions of people with his online content at www.brianpennie.com. By combining his lived experience with his academic expertise, Brian’s session will focus on resilience, or more specifically, moving beyond resilience, by using adversity as fuel for growth.

Exceptional

Chris Hamilton CIP Chris Hamilton CIP Mobile: 086 041 2761 Mobile: 086 041 2761 Email: chamilton@oib.ie Email: chamilton@oib.ie

Wayne Kwan CIP Wayne Kwan CIP

Mobile: 083 202 1240 Mobile: 083 202 1240

Email: wkwan@o Email: wkwan@oib.ie

40 years of Irish Gifting

As Carroll’s Irish Gifts hits a milestone year in retail, we speak to founder Colm Carroll on lessons learned after an incredible 40 years of trade, and discover more about the man behind the business

Four decades in Irish retail is no small feat, to say the least, and founder and chairman of Carroll’s Irish Gifts, Colm Carroll – and former REI Chairman from 2018 to 2019 – naturally has a lot to celebrate.

“I celebrated 40 years in business last year. It is a milestone I am incredibly proud of, particularly as we have survived a di cult few years through Covid pandemic – this was was specially tough for tourism-related businesses – but I believe we have

Colm’s Tips:

• You must enjoy what you do or you will nor survive the highs and lows of a business career.

• Business success is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration.

come out of it leaner, sharper, more e cient,” he says.

Almost right away he credits his team, a “young, dynamic and strong professional workforce,” led by CEO Peter Hyland and Colm’s ve children Jonathan, Adam, Keith, Scott and Amy, as key tools to success for the next four decades, but before we look ahead, it makes sense to go back to before the journey began.

Starting out

Born in Walkinstown in Dublin in

December 1955, Colm describes the area as a, “tough, working class area, but one with great community spirit – I have nothing but very happy memories from my childhood there.” He comes from a large family of six children and says he was exposed to a little of what he would eventually master – selling quality products to the public – thanks to his hardworking parents.

“Both my parents worked really hard, with my mother supplementing our income by knitting jumpers and cardigans to sell or barter with the neighbours for other goods.” This hardworking ethic rubbed o on Colm, even if he didn’t quite realise it right away. “My father was a wonderful man who lived for his family, but he had no aspirations of wealth and would have been fearful of taking risks and incurring debt. My mother, on the other hand, was from Roscommon from a family of 11 and was extremely hard working and always encouraged us to better ourselves. She would save every penny possible, and often went down to the Post O ce to lodge as little as 50p.“ “There was no early showing of entrepreneurial skills on my side really, but I always had an evening or weekend job,” he continues.

“Including collecting old newspapers door-to-door in a bockety pram for 6p per load.” He had a few hiccups, naturally, in the early days. “I also delivered meat on a butcher’s pushbike, until one day, I abandoned the bike and a full load of meat after being attacked by a bunch of neighbourhood dogs who obviously smelled all the meat! They had a feast, but I lost my job,” he remembers.

A seed planted

The early days of his childhood were lled with memories of Irish music – something you’ll always hear in a Carroll’s store. “All six children in the family ( ve boys and one sister) were enrolled in the Municipal College of Music in Chatham Street to learn to play classical music when I was around seven. We also joined the local Ceoltas Ceoltoiri Eireann Music Association where we learned to play traditional Irish music and songs.”

And the family were talented. Colm explains their training paid o as they reached their early teens. “Music became a huge part of our lives when from about 12 years of age we started to play professionally at various concert venues around Ireland. We appeared on many TV shows from Opportunity Knocks with Hughie Green, The Val Doonican Show to many appearances on The Late Late Show with Gay Byrne.”

“When we were still in school, we joined Jury’s Irish Cabaret, an Irish Cabaret featuring Irish singers, comedians and musicians playing mainly for tourists. The show was on seven nights per week for seven entrepreneur and lecturer. My friend from the markets was a student there helped me sneak into the lectures.”

In short, his hardworking, entrepreneurial days really began then. “During my four years in the Civil Service, I wholesaled product to my work colleagues and held down two other jobs, with music at night and retailing in the markets at the weekends. My main products for sale were kitchen foil, kitchen towels and bales of toilet rolls bought from a factory in Finglas. My parents sitting room at home was my warehouse.”

It was in 1976, Colm left the Civil

“This was the rst of many ‘allor-nothing risks’ I took in the early years,” he continues, adding that he worked seven days a week, 12 hours a day in the early days, taking no holidays and losing touch with many friends to get his retail career o to the best start he could, but he wouldn’t have had it any other way. “I loved every moment of what I was doing.”

Fast forward to 1986, Colm opened his rst city centre store in O’Connell Street, and in 1996, he bought the O’Connell Street property, “one of the prodest days of my business life.”

“I ploughed every penny I had into Easter Eggs and opened on Good Friday 1982. The entire shop was full of Easter eggs and nothing else! As luck would have it, the local supermarkets sold out early and I was the only shop with eggs.” months of the year and we played in that for about 12 consecutive years,” he continues, adding that it was this mix of travel and tourism that planted a seed of the change to come, as Colm explains. “We toured all over Europe and America where we performed in many venues including Carnegie Hall and the Boston Symphony Hall, and this showed me a di erent side of life and the bene ts and lifestyles that could be had if you earned money. It also sowed the rst seeds of how important tourism is to the Irish economy and possibly the potential of starting an Irish giftware retail company.”

Though it was, he says, a move to Castleknock at aged 15, that changed the course of his life. “Moving to Castleknock in my teens and meeting people with wealth and starting a market stall business venture with one of my friends changed the direction of my life,” he continued.

Changing course

“I didn’t attend university – I went straight from school in 1972 and worked as a Clerical O cer in the Civil Service. I did however, make a dash at lunch hour from my workplace in Merrion Square to UCD Bel eld to attend the business lectures of John Teeling who was a dynamic

Service (much to the upset of his parents who worried about the lack of stability and no pension), to set up a wholesale and retail business with a friend from his market days, Paul McGlade. “We set up three Apollo 1 Discount Stores in Dublin. This was one of the rst Discount Store chains to open in Ireland and it was phenomenally successful. Paul and I travelled to Hong Kong and around the Far East, purchasing and importing products.”

“Despite a fantastic relationship with Paul, I decided that I wanted to start my own business and opened my rst small shop in Dundrum in 1982 – Bargain King Discount Stores with a €10,000 bank overdraft from Bank of Ireland and nothing else except the experience I had gained and the contacts I had developed over the previous years.”

And the deciding factor in the success of Colm’s rst solo business venture? Easter eggs.

“I ploughed every penny I had into Easter Eggs and opened on Good Friday 1982. The entire shop was full of Easter eggs and nothing else! As luck would have it, the local supermarkets sold out early and I was the only shop with eggs so I sold out entirely by Sunday afternoon and my new retail career had started successfully.”

Carrolls Irish Gifts is born Carroll’s was born in the late 1990s when Colm and his co-Director Lorcan O’Connor decided they needed to specialise. And so, Carroll’s Irish Gifts opened for St Patrick’s Day 1998.

Carroll’s Irish Gifts now employ 350 colleagues hailing from 33 di erent countries, with 19 stores throughout Ireland in Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Galway and Kilkenny. “We are the largest Irish Gifts retailer in the country. We also export to more than 90 countries worldwide through our website,” Colm adds.

The business has survived many upand-downs over the years – including a pandemic – and is still going strong.

“With no tourists during Covid, we had to change our business model radically. We identi ed a gap that Irish customers wanted an Irish gift which represented quality and value. We brought in new ranges and products that thankfully, the domestic Irish market wanted,” he continues.

“Carroll’s also introduced a new policy of embracing new emerging brands from young Irish designers, and providing them with a platform to sell their products throughout Ireland and worldwide on our website. Carroll’s will continue to be an Irish gift store, but are expanding our ranges to include new categories in wellness, beauty, homewares and hampers. We get Irish gifting – we’ve been doing this for 40 years.”

“I take great pride in watching the team we have pulled together taking on the challenge of driving the business for the next 40 years,” he says while adding that now just might be the time he starts to take his foot o the gas.

“I am here as a mentor and support the Board when needed. I hope to take more holidays with my wonderful and supportive wife Annette.” And other hobbies? He’s active and loves the water, particularly boating, he plays golf, “but badly!” has been know to slope o for some skiing in the winter months. But, Carroll’s is never too far from his mind. “I still love walking the stores and speaking to my colleagues, and am as excited about opening our 20th store as I was with my rst.”