Advisory Board & Steering Committee Meet to Plan for our Future

LEAD Network: By the members, for the members

The Advisory Board members are senior executive leaders who provide strategic guidance to the LEAD Network Foundation. The Steering Committee is made up of the Chairs of LEAD’s Committees – Marketing & Communication, Education, Business Plan & Fundraising, Membership and the Local Chapters.

On 3rd and 4th April, the LEAD Advisory Board and Steering Committee met in London for the first of their two annual meetings, hosted by Johnson & Johnson. Planet Retail, the world’s leading provider of global retail intelligence, led the group in a series of store visits in central London, with a focus on in-store innovation, digital trends and brand engagement with the consumer. In the afternoon, Elena Fernandez-Kleinlein, Senior Director, Consumer R&D at the Johnson & Johnson Innovation Centre presented their perspective on how they have started to source innovation differently and change their company culture so that they are better equipped to face new disruptive business models head on.

The LEAD Advisory Board and Steering Committee spent part of the meeting taking stock of LEAD’s accomplishments to date, and the other half planning for the future. Helayne Angelus, Partner at Kalypso, Past Chair of the LEAD Advisory Board, led the discussion. The group spent time analysing the current service offer that we provide to our members, and working out other opportunities that can bring value to our membership, particularly in the area of skill-building specific to women in CPG & Retail.

When it came to thinking about the future of the LEAD Network, the discussion revolved around the long-term targets of the LEAD Network (circa 2022), the value we want to deliver to our members at both an individual and a company level, and how we can measure our success. We agreed that our service offering needs to be practical and results-focused and volunteer-driven, as LEAD truly is an organization ‘by the members, for the members’.