Fortifying the Team: Recruitment, Retention and Resilience

Michael is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. He has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions with C-level executives and participated on thought leadership panels worldwide.

Michael is also the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts, including Canada’s top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail, plus the Remarkable Retail with author Steve Dennis, Global E-Commerce Tech Talks and The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, all available on Apple, Spotify, Amazon and all major podcast platforms.

Harris Silver served as an Infantry Officer with the Canadian Forces, with several operational tours in the Balkans and the Middle East, as well as providing support to domestic operations supporting the civil authorities.

He conducted the disarmament of former Mujahedeen fighters for the United Nations in Afghanistan, supported the security and electoral operations of the 2005 and 2009 Afghanistan elections, and was a counter-narcotics adviser for the Poppy Elimination Programme in Kandahar.

Harris established the High-Risk program at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, providing risk assessment, training, contingency planning and crisis management for media operations, including the Sochi and Rio Olympics, as well as news assignments to covering the Arab Spring, conflicts in Syria, Libya, and the Ebola outbreak in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Most recently, he stood up the security program at Canada Goose to enable growth and expansion of the brand globally.

He is a board-certified security professional holding the Certified Protection Professional Designation (CPP) from ASIS, and the Canadian Risk Management (CRM) Designation.

With close to 20 years of progressive experience in the LP/AP world, Daryl believes that Innovation, Technology and Education are the foundation for success in our challenging field.
Daryl sees a strong correlation between employee engagement, data capture and data usage that can form the basis of business cases when leveraged.

Maxine has over 30 years experience working in retail and has had the opportunity to work for both Canadian and US retailers such as Eaton’s, Sears, Old Navy and most recently Carter’s. For many of those years she has worked within Asset Protection and most recently within Human Resources. Maxine is a certified instructor for Situational Leadership, Certified Forensic Interviewer and a trusted advisor on building and managing diverse and effective teams. As a previous Senior Human Resources Manager she brings a creative perspective on how we can lead our AP teams differently in this ever changing retail environment.