Collision Conference Special edition featuring interviews with Sarah Landstreet of Georgette Packaging, Irish Minister for Trade & Business Pat Breen and Hassan Murad from Intuititve AI plus commentary by Chris Hodgson & Lisa Charters

Welcome to a very special Collision conference edition of the Voice of Retail podcast I’m your host Michael LeBlanc and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.

Described by some as the Tiff for Tech, Collision is Irishman’s Paddy Cosgrave’s great import into Toronto for the first of a three year run. This North American tech conference outgrew it’s New Orleans home and welcome as Visa access for it’s many international guest became harder to come by, and after Paddy visited Toronto and began to appreciate the burgeoning tech scene and welcoming environment.
Learn more at https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/it-s-like-tiff-for-tech-why-the-collision-conference-is-moving-to-toronto-1.5139325

So over a couple of days I joined 25,711 attendees from 125 countries including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau , Houseplant retail cannabis brand creator Seth Rogen, and the always amazing Kara Swisher plus and many many more.

I put this episode together featuring interviews and highlights for the week starting with Sarah Landstreet, Founder + CEO at Georgette Packaging (Y Combinator W2016) the day after she crushed her MainStage two minute pitch opening night talking to us about next generation packaging, processes, engineering and materials.

Next, offsite I chat with Pat Breen, Irish Minister for Trade, Business & Employment. EU Digital Single Market & Data Protection who was visiting on a trade mission this week promoting Irish tech and merchandise. We met at the Irish Design House in Toronto hosted by wonderful owner Sinéad Clarke. Stay tuned for an upcoming episode for a feature interview with Sinéad.
https://twitter.com/PatBreen1?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Learn more about the Flywheel here: http://www.anrdoezrs.net/links/8946794/type/dlg/fragment/internal%3D1/https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/home/search/?keywords=the%20flywheel

Last but certainly not least I chat with Hassan Murad, Founder, Intuitive - AI for Zero Waste on his innovative AI powered recycling sorting solution Oscar that visually scans the items you are about to dispose of and tells you what goes where. https://intuitiveai.ca/vision

I’m also joined with commentary interspersed between the interviews by two fellow Collision attendees, visionary tech leader Chris Hodgson founder of the Pivt and Lisa Charters a long time digital maven in the entertainment, content and business advisory practice with their commentary and observations on the show
https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherhodgson/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisacharters/

That’s a wrap on this special Collision edition of The Voice of Retail, if you liked this podcast you can subscribe on iTunes or your favourite podcast platform, and be sure and recommend to a friend or colleague in the retail industry. You can also ask your favourite home devices, Amazon Echo, Google home to play the most recent edition.

I’m Michael LeBlanc, Founder and President of M.E. LeBlanc and company and you can learn more about me on www.meleblanc.co or of course on LinkedIn

Join me each and every Friday as I interview some of the most interesting people in retail and cover off the most important stories within the Canadian retail industry and around the world.

Until then, have a great week!

The Voice of Retail podcast is presented by Hale, a performance marketing partner trusted by brands like ASICS, Saje, and Orangetheory to scale with focus and impact.

Michael LeBlanc is the president and founder of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc, a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and now, media entrepreneur. He has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career.

Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels, most recently on the main stage in Toronto at Retail Council of Canada’s Retail Marketing conference with leaders from Walmart & Google. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, CanWest Media, Pandora Jewellery, The Shopping Channel and Retail Council of Canada to his advisory, speaking and media practice.

Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including the award-winning No.1 independent retail industry podcast in America, Remarkable Retail with his partner, Dallas-based best-selling author Steve Dennis; Canada's top retail industry podcast The Voice of Retail and Canada's top food industry and one of the top Canadian-produced management independent podcasts in the country, The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois from Dalhousie University in Halifax.

Rethink Retail has recognized Michael as one of the top global retail experts for the fifth year in a row, the National Retail Federation has designated Michael as on their Top Retail Voices for 2025, Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail, RTIH has named him a top 100 global though leader in retail technology and Coresight Research has named Michael a Retail AI Influencer. If you are a BBQ fan, you can tune into Michael’s cooking show, Last Request BBQ, on YouTube, Instagram, X and yes, TikTok.

Michael is available for keynote presentations helping retailers, brands and retail industry insiders explaining the current state and future of the retail industry in North America and around the world.