RetailCraft
Executive Networking Dinners
After 20 years tracking the performance of the best D2C, digitally-powered retailers and brands, via our quartet of ranking reports (UK, EU, Brands, Global Elite) we are of the confirmed view that it is the wonderful people in our industry that count. Our dinners are a private and convivial space for those people to meet.
In that time we’ve been providing off the record networking and peer exchange opportunities for the world’s leading retailers and brands
People, Power, Performance Space to Chat
Great people love other great people – so we organise monthly dinners in the UK and Europe so that the best can spend time with the best.
Our approach? A sales-free, presentation-free, topic-free evening of great people, wonderful hospitality and all under the Chatham House Rule.
There is always a place for sales-focused meetings (try our 121s at our events!) – just not at our Dinners.
Upcoming Dinners Q1 2025
New York
15 January 2025
London
22 January 2025
Berlin
18 February 2025
London
4 March 2025
London
3 April 2025
Frequently Asked Questions
20 years ago we established InternetRetailing as the event and media business for professionals in ecommerce and multichannel. In 2014 we launched our research business, RetailX, to ensure that coverage was based on facts, performance and analysis. Dinners are curated by our CEO, Ian Jindal. You can see more about our activities on this site, but just ping Ian if you have any questions.
We invite “commercial leaders”. For us this means leaders who engage with the consumer, or whose success is dependant upon satisfying the demanding, digital consumer. Typically these are leaders in ecommerce, marketing, brand, trading, strategy; however we include commercial leaders in finance, operations, logistics and stores where their interest is in improving the customer’s experience and of course spend. The key is a growth and commercial mindset since that means there will be an interest in the board-level conversation around the consumer, the brand and performance.
Our focus is upon the commercial leaders in the UK500 and EU1000 performance rankings. This means that we are continually researching people in those companies. At our dinners we like to mix people we’ve known for a while with leaders who are new to us – this keeps the evenings fresh and ensures that we have new inputs, ideas and expand the network. We also take suggestions from guests as to who they would nominate for future dinners.
For us this is our chance to listen and learn, and so we are continually looking for people who can stimulate, challenge and engage on emerging aspects of D2C.
We hold our dinners under the Chatham House Rule (https://www.chathamhouse.org/about-us/chatham-house-rule) and so there is no quoting, no promotion, no publicity. We do not disclose the attendees, we do not take photos, we do not report on the evenings. Our dinners are an off-the-record, confidential gathering of leaders.
You do not have to pay. You are invited as our guest.
If you need to know the cost of dinner (eg for anti-bribery or anti-corruption compliance) we can provide that.
All you need to pay for is your transport to and from the dinner 🙂
Our dinners are paid for from our research sponsorship. You’ll see from the annual reports that we work across Europe with a select group of long-standing sponsors. We use some of that income to fund the dinners so that our research is more than bare facts. As we say, people power performance. 2 sponsors attend but there are no speeches, sales, pitches and there is no data given or lead-generation. This is an evening of pure networking.
Wonderful! Please drop Ian Jindal a note. We love recommendations.
Our team works through our company lists diligently, but if you are new in post, quiet and modest on social media, or have a name that is towards the end of the alphabet (!) then we may not have reached you yet. Our apologies. Please don’t be shy about letting us know of your interest. Drop Ian a note or complete this form, and do be sure to cover the city/cities you could attend.
Generally, no. Our aim is to convene a ‘board level conversation’ and so topics range wide and free without our intervention. Occasionally we are hosted at an Embassy, or around an event, and in which case there will be a flavour from that association, but we don’t theme our dinners nor do we manufacture talking points or topics.
London is our base and we host c10 dinners a year here. Across Europe we visit Amsterdam (3), Berlin (3), Copenhagen (2), Paris and Stockholm. We have also run dinners in New York (autumn and/or NRF), Dubai, Melbourne, Sydney, Munich and Zurich. If you have a suggestion for a location then do let us know.
Please invite me to a Dinner
Don’t be shy! You are probably here because you already know some of our guests, so please introduce yourself to Ian Jindal and the team.
