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Melissa Campanelli

Melissa Campanelli is the co-founder of the Women in Retail Leadership Circle, a unique, members-only networking group that offers enterprise-level women in the retail industry a place to learn, connect and grow. She is also the brand and content director of the Retail and Travel Group at NAPCO Media. Prior to those positions, Melissa spent ten years at DM News, where she was first a senior editor and then deputy editor. She’s also a leading expert in small business e-commerce and author of the books “Entrepreneur Magazine’s Open an Online Business in 10 Days” and “55 Surefire Internet Businesses You Can Start for Under $5,000.” In her free time, Melissa loves exploring New York City and Brooklyn and spending time with her family.
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Let's Stand Together

Over the past few days, I, like many of you, have been following the news around the murder of George Floyd, and I’m still trying to process it all. The senseless violence, the broken communities, the growing list of black Americans whose lives have been taken from them in brutal and tragic ways. Simply put,...

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How the Fashion Industry is Changing Due to COVID-19

COVID-19 has triggered a paradigm shift in the fashion industry. This was a key finding from a recent report published by Martens & Heads! Executive Consultancy titled, Beyond 2020: Reflections On the Next Chapter. The report compiles responses from a questionnaire Martens & Heads sent to its retail- and fashion-based clients and members of its...

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3 Top Challenges Our Subscribers Are Currently Facing

Managing the financial health of their businesses, marketing and selling their products/services without seeming insensitive or tone deaf, and work-life balance are the key challenges our readers and members are currently facing as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. This data comes courtesy of a recent Women in Retail Leadership Circle survey sent to our...

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Why the Current Crisis is a Good Time to Reset How You Communicate

While the COVID-19 pandemic has turned the world upside down, the current climate also offers leaders a unique opportunity to examine their relationships with friends, employees and customers, and then reset and ultimately improve how they they communicate with them. This is a key point highlighted during Cindy Solomon’s Surviving and Thriving During Disruption webinar,...

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Honor Frontline Workers With the Gratitude Box!

Dreamr, a specialized, full-service brand box firm founded by Women in Retail Leadership Circle (WIRLC) partner Patti Hester, has launched the Gratitude Box project, a nonprofit program that enables consumers to gift care boxes to frontline healthcare heroes, first responders, and essential workers who are risking their lives with selfless acts during the COVID-19 crisis....

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Crate and Barrel CEO Neela Montgomery on Leading During COVID-19

During the Women in Retail and Total Retail Virtual Exchange, held on April 28, Neela Montgomery, CEO of Crate and Barrel, participated in a live interview that touched on a wide-range topics, including everything from the furniture and home decor retailer’s plans for reopening its brick-and-mortar stores to how its marketing strategy has evolved during this...

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How R.Riveter Mobilized a Remote Manufacturing Line to Produce Face Mask Covers

R.Riveter, an American-made handbag company that supports military families by providing military spouses with flexible employment, recently pivoted its business to focus on sewing face mask covers in an effort to provide much-needed supplies to front-line workers fighting against COVID-19. In the interview below, R.Riveter’s founder Lisa Bradley discusses how the initiative began, how it’s...

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Happy Mother's Day to All!

Mother’s Day is going to be a little different this year. While the holiday is usually celebrated with family outings to brunch or mother-daughter spa days, many of these traditions will be postponed until next year as the coronavirus pandemic makes social distancing the new normal. But this doesn’t mean Mother’s Day 2020 has to...

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Resources for You

I wanted to start this week’s opening letter by letting you know that the Women in Retail Leadership Summit has been postponed from Aug. 24-26 to Oct. 12-14. The Summit will still take place at the Ritz-Carlton Key Biscayne, Miami. We think pushing back the Summit is the best decision for the health, safety, and...

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Join Us Live

How is everyone hanging in there? It’s hard to believe that many of us have been living and working in our new normals for more than a month now. Personally, I’ve settled in pretty well, as long as I take daily walks, eat well, and turn off the news (as a form of self-preservation). I’ve...

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