Maureen Johnson,Retail Knowledge Mentor

Maureen Johnson has specialised in the retail sector since the early 80’s.  From 1982, as a main board Director of Research International UK (part of WPP) she created and built the agency’s Global Retail Practise and in 1996, was appointed its Global Director, Retail and Category Management. During that time she consulted to retailers including Next, Arcadia, Selfridges, Argos, Liberty, Tesco, Sainsbury and Adams Childrenswear. She pioneered research into the understanding of in-store activity on shopper behaviour.

In 1998 Maureen set up The Store, WPP’s Global Retail Practise which brings together professionals from across Group companies who specialise in the retail sector. Together they focus on retail issues, share insights and experiences and access leading edge thinking from around the world.

At The Store, Maureen provides a touchstone on shopper behaviour and insights for both retailers and their suppliers, most recently for Unilever and Ikea and a variety of food and non-food retailers in Latam and Australia.  Internationally, she is considered an authority on in-store media and in India, Maureen has been providing consultancy and support to WPP’s GroupM and its partner Future Media in the development of its ambient media business.

In 2001, she led the WPP team that conducted the Coca-Cola Retail Research Group Europe’s - The Store of the Future and in 2007, its study The Inflection Point – Critical Pathways in Food Retailing. For the last seven years she has also led WPP’s contribution to ECR Europe Conferences, culminating in 2007’s “Trading on Health and Wellness”.

Maureen has published extensively on retail topics, from articles in retail and marketing journals to research white papers for which she has won numerous awards including a Gold award from Esomar for her paper  From Identifying Need States to Testing in Virtual Reality - Supporting Category Management (1998); WPP’s Atticus Award for Market Research in 1996 for a paper on Category Management - Turning Swords Into Plough Shares and, in 1989, a white paper  The Application of Geodemographics to Retailing: Meeting the Needs of the Catchment, which was considered a ‘milestone’ in market research by The Market Research Society.  She is a regular speaker on retail topics at UK and International industry conferences, including ECR Europe and South Africa, Hellenic Marketing Association, Fenalco and ExpoRetail in Latin America, CII annual Marketing summit in India and most recently at Technopak’s 1st India Consumer Mindscapes in Mumbai.