I chose to pursue a retail management concentration during its first introduction to the BCom program in 2018 because of the exceptional professors of practice and brand-new course curriculum that brought current day trends, innovations, and business challenges into the classroom discussion. Without a strong emphasis on traditional textbook-based learning, our cases were extremely relevant to the present day struggles of retailers, forcing our small cohort of students to strive for the most unique solutioning when solving cases and approaching problems. Naturally, I constantly began observing the way our shopping patterns evolved especially among my generation and asking questions about why certain retailers failed to adapt.
When it came to lectures, we were greeted by guest speakers every week including the CEO of Aldo and Lightspeed, never seen before in other classes, and presented with opportunities to directly consult companies such as MissFresh and Maison Birks. The constant focus on innovation enabled me to think outside the box, approaching omni-channel retail with experiential brick-and-mortar strategies and strong eCommerce campaigns in mind. Most notably, I had the chance to also leverage learnings from international companies thriving in foreign retail markets when writing up reports on Alibaba, Xiaomi, and Burger King's exceptional marketing strategy in a time of retail revolution.
Retail Research / Career
In my final semester, I was able to couple my passions in technology and retail innovation to pursue an independent research study supervised by Professor Yoo and understand how macro trends in grocery delivery and innovation could be transferred to a localized solution here in Montreal. Through the research opportunity, I was able to personally interview and learn from industry leaders across companies such as Loblaw Digital, Postmates, Voila by Sobey's, as well as the head of the Food and Retail Lab at MIT. Shortly after, I leveraged these research insights to directly apply my learnings in the field, gaining a rare opportunity to work at Jupiter.co for the summer, a YCS19 start up striving to automate groceries in the Bay Area. At Jupiter, I was able to launch four growth channel experiments with the Stanford founding team and watch the day-to-day operations of a seed stage start-up in action. Looking back, it all started when I took a leap of faith to pursue an unconventional path in retail at McGill.
Retail Innovation Challenge
Just prior to my May 2020 graduation, COVID-19 hit North America in a way that would be detrimental to the retail industry and small independent businesses. I found it to be both a rewarding experience and direct way of giving back to my community to participate in the Bensadoun Retail Innovation Challenge as a case writer and judge. Working hand-in-hand with a staff member of the Retail Lab and a master’s student, I was able to develop the story around Foodchain's challenges as a small business entering the pandemic, and evaluate solutions pitched by students across Canada. I'm extremely grateful I had the opportunity to work on the case, in hopes that it can bring inspiration to the Foodchain team during its toughest battle in a global pandemic.
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