Speakers

Brandon’s been telling stories to anyone who will listen, all his life. A celebrated writer, photographer, editor, book author and public speaker, he’s had too much to eat and drink on all seven continents and played golf on six of them, although he now claims to be ‘completely recovered’ from the sport. His career has been a ‘compendium of games’: bars & restaurants, a decade in music and another in publishing first as a magazine editor and then group creative director for RamsayMedia (Wine, Getaway, CAR, Compleat Golfer) where he discovered that Brené Brown was right: stories are just data with a soul! For the past 12 years, he’s been partner in and creative director of WhyFive, the company behind the annual BrandMapp survey, South Africa’s largest survey of adults living in 10K+ households. As a go-to thought-leader in the world of consumer behaviour, he specialises in taking data and presenting them like great rock songs.

Doug Stephens is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost business futurists and strategists. His creativity and foresight have influenced the strategies of global brands including Walmart, Nike, Coca Cola, and L’Oréal, to name only a few. Doug is the international bestselling author of three books on the future of consumerism. His fourth book, The Future of Competitive Advantage: A Business Plan to Save Your Customers, Your Company, and Democracy will be released in June 2026. He is also a nationally syndicated retail columnist for CBC Radio and sits on multiple corporate and academic advisory boards, including the David Sobey Centre for Innovation in Retail at St. Mary’s University. Doug’s unique perspectives on trends in economics, technology, and consumer behaviour have been featured in many of the world’s leading publications and media outlets including The New York Times, the BBC, The Business of Fashion, The Wall Street Journal, and Fast Company.

Dr Catherine Davies, widely known as Dr Cathy, is a South African medical doctor based in Johannesburg with nearly three decades of clinical experience. She holds an MBBCh from the University of the Witwatersrand, an MBA from Henley Business School, and an MSc in Longevity Science from the Geneva College of Longevity Science. She is founder and director of ZD Hair Clinic, a specialist practice in hair restoration, aesthetic, and regenerative medicine, and a recognised expert in FUE hair transplantation and Platelet-Rich Fibrin therapies. An international lecturer for PRF Edu, the American Academy of Aesthetic Medicine, and AIMe Medical Group, she is a peer-reviewed author on regenerative aesthetics and produces and presents the docuseries Outpatients, now airing its third season worldwide.

Joe Baer is the Co-Founder, Creative Director, and CEO of ZenGenius, Inc., an experiential design firm specializing in visual merchandising and event design, headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. Joe brings innovative leadership and creative direction to the design, visual merchandising, and special events industries. He authored The Art of Visual Merchandising: Short North and created the Iron Merchant Challenge, a popular interactive visual merchandising competition held annually at the International Retail Design Conference. Joe's passion for the world of design is evident in his role as President of the PAVE Global leadership board and his Advisory Board seat with VMSD Magazine. Joe leads with passion, purpose, and pure joy.

Kegomoditswe Sethosa is the CEO and Director of Galxboy (Pty) Ltd, a leading South African youth streetwear brand turned national omnichannel retailer. Joining in 2014 and becoming CEO in 2018, he transformed Galxboy from a digital startup into a brand with 17 stores across all nine provinces, a robust e-commerce platform, and over R100 million in annual revenue. Under his leadership, the company expanded into accessories and footwear, processed over one million orders, and achieved more than R1 billion in cumulative revenue by 2026. With an academic background in Investment Management and Applied Mathematics, Kegomoditswe blends data-driven strategy with a passion for Africa’s creative economy.

Ken Hughes, known as The King of Customer Experience, is now acknowledged as being one of the world’s leading authorities on consumer behaviour, blending his understanding of consumer & cyber psychology, digital anthropology, and retail futurology to explore the needs of the new consumer and predict changes to come. Ken advises some of the biggest brands in the world on Customer & Employee Experience, Omnichannel Strategy, Artificial Intelligence, Retail Futurology, the Millennial / Gen Z shopper and the Peer-to-Peer Economy. As an accomplished author, TED speaker, part-time university professor and actor, his performances are not only insightful and thought-provoking, but are infamous for their sheer passion, energy and wit.

Lesego Gumede is the Founder of Sneaker Cleanic, a Gauteng-based sneaker cleaning, restoration and repair brand founded in 2021. What started as a small township business in Mabopane has grown into a multi-store operation serving thousands of customers across Pretoria. Lesego’s journey is rooted in resilience, innovation and building a proudly local brand from the ground up. As an entrepreneur with a hearing disability and a cochlear implant, his story reflects courage, adaptability and the power of turning personal and community challenges into business opportunities. He is passionate about township entrepreneurship, customer experience and creating businesses that inspire the next generation.

Meg Lefeld is a retail industry professional, a traumatic brain injury survivor, and a sensory accessibility advocate, and she'll tell you those three things are more connected than they might seem. For over a decade, Meg has worked in visual merchandising at ZenGenius, partnering with brands across fashion, garden centers, food and beverage, footwear, and more. A car accident in 2022 forced her out of the industry she loved and into a recovery that changed how she understood the spaces people move through every day. That experience sent her deep into research on how the brain processes sensory input and how environment shapes the way people feel, behave, and engage. Today Meg speaks to audiences around the world, helping them see neurosensory design as both a smart business decision and the right thing to do. She has been recognized as VMSD's 2025 Designer Dozen and the youngest recipient of design: retail Magazine's 40 Under 40.

Strategist Melissa Gonzalez is a principal at the global architecture and design firm MG2, an affiliate of Colliers Engineering & Design, and the founder of the MG2 Advisory. Drawing from her success as a Wall Street executive and a seasoned entrepreneur who has worked side-by-side with some of the fastest-growing direct-to-consumer companies, she advises brands and retailers on how to leverage forward-thinking consumer insights with innovative strategy from concept through implementation and has advanced the industry through her work in experiential design. A sought-after speaker, Gonzalez has presented at SXSW, NRF’s Retail’s Big Show, and Vogue Business Summit. She has been quoted in WWD, Business of Fashion, Retail Brew, Glossy, Forbes, and The New York Times. Gonzalez is also the creator and host of the podcast Retail Refined, which explores the future of retail and in-store technology. Her first-to-market research is published in quarterly consumer reports that are anticipated by retail leaders and offer insights into a variety of topics, most recently Gen Alpha.