RCM26Day 2 · 6 October 2026 · Panel
The Leadership Conversation: What It Takes to Lead Retail at Scale
Three takeaways
- 01Neeraj Teckchandani joined Apparel Group when it had one brand in seven stores; it now runs 2,600 stores with 28,000 people in 14 countries, and he said scale turned him from a perfectionist doer into an enabler.
- 02Eighteen months into its digital transformation, Apparel Group saw pricing and markdown tools clash with people's judgement; Teckchandani said the answer was revisiting the rules and building clean data foundations, while Nasser Alajmi stressed critical thinking about AI answers.
- 03Push small decisions to the front line: Nasser Alajmi urged giving customer-facing staff the authority and a budget to fix small problems without approvals, and both panellists would promote the person who develops others over the solo high performer.
About the session
Leading retail across several markets means faster decisions, larger teams and the confidence of customers, partners and shareholders, all at the same time. Leaders who have done it discuss how they set priorities, when they decide to pivot, how they carry the organisation with them, and what they look for in the people who will lead next.
“rather than a doer, you have to become an enabler”
From the room
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More from Day 2
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