The International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) officially launched two new European specialist working groups, the ICSC European Diversity group and the ICSC European Innovation group.
Innovation and Diversity are key issues for the retail industry, so ICSC gathered representatives from a large number of member companies to discuss how collectively the industry can support a culture of innovation, as well as an increasingly diverse workforce.
In particular, under the ICSC European Diversity initiative, a meeting was held in JLL’s London office (as sponsor of the initiative) to discuss the opportunities and challenges that face women in retail real estate and how ICSC can work with member companies and other organisations to support them.
Alison Rehill-Erguven, Managing Director at Pradera who chaired the first meeting of this initiative said “I am very enthusiastic about the discussions during our first meeting of the new ICSC European Diversity group. Ensuring diversity in the retail industry workplace is extremely important and it is great to have this initiative supported by the ICSC“. The ICSC European Innovation group held its first meeting in the ICSC London office with the mission to foster and promote an innovation culture across ICSC, its member companies and its members. Stephan Jung, Director of Retail Investment at Savills Germany and Chair of the ICSC Innovation group said “The group is composed of very active and brilliant industry experts, I am confident that we will achieve great things together.” Both groups will be involved in the 2015 ICSC European Conference in London on 20-21 April. The event will be celebrating its 40th anniversary with more than 700 industry professionals from across the world, representing a diverse range of owners, developers, investors, retailers and service providers, discussing the theme “Destination: Retail”. Kevin McKenzie, Group Chief Digital Officer of Westfield Labs will identify the social, mobile and digital market opportunities that merge the digital shopper with the physical world. Chris Sanderson, Future Labs co-founder will offer a visual tour around the most successful global retail property destinations and providing insight into why they work. Outside the conference arena and new for 2015, ICSC has created an Innovation Zone designed to serve as a platform to industry suppliers to showcase their capabilities and feature new ideas and innovative solutions.
The International Council of Shopping Centers
Founded in 1957, the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) is the global not-for-profit trade association for the retail real estate sector representing owners, developers, occupiers, investors, retailers and service providers. It has a diverse membership with over 68,000 members globally in 100 countries and over 7,000 members across 45 countries in Europe. Our industry and membership represents over 200 million m² of floorspace covering a variety of retail formats. For more information, please visit www.icsc.org
