Authentic Brands Group founder, chairman and CEO Jamie Salter and Saks Global executive chairman Richard Baker kicked off the final day of the 2025 World Retail Congress with an interview about their joint venture to expand Authentic’s luxury brands into new territory, including hospitality, real estate, art and travel. 

The two retail giants discussed the shifting dynamics of the luxury market, including the rise of experiences, an area they’re looking to explore through the Barney’s brand. 

“We’re already building Barney’s Tulum in Mexico, so we will be building resident condos. And why is that so important to be in the hospitality business? Because at the end of the day, they go into Saks and buy all their home products,” Salter explained. 

“You can see a lot of luxury brands today are getting into the hospitality business in a big way with condos and hotels.” 

Salter and Baker also discussed the future of online luxury, with Saks Global’s recent announcement of a ‘walled garden’ storefront on Amazon. “When we sit here in five years, luxury on Amazon is going to be the most natural thing you can imagine,” Baker said. 

Saks is looking to launch similar sites on Amazon in Japan, China, the UK and Middle East.

How the former CEO of H&M Group thinks about sustainability today

Another big-name speaker on Wednesday was Helena Helmersson, the chairperson of Circulose. 

Since stepping down from her previous role as CEO of H&M Group over a year ago, Helmersson said she has gained clarity, particularly around the shift in attitudes towards sustainability in recent years.

“I think it can be explained by the Gartner Hype Cycle,” she said. 

Typically, the Gartner Hype Cycle is used to describe the maturity, adoption and social application of new technologies. However, Helmersson believes the cycle’s key phases, including the “peak of inflated expectations”, “the valley of disillusionment” and “the slope of enlightenment”, help to explain why enthusiasm for corporate sustainability seems to have fallen in recent years. 

While retail may currently be in “the valley”, the next phase – the “slope of enlightenment” – is when attention starts growing again and the impact is truly felt. 

“But this will not happen by itself. It is up to us in this room to take our businesses, our industries, our shareholders and our customers [on the journey]. The understanding, technologies and solutions may not have been there in 2020, but they’re for sure here now,” she said. 

Helmersson went on to address some of the key challenges she believes could be preventing some retailers from prioritising sustainability, but said it is up to CEOs to solve the conflict between business and sustainability. 

Global supply chain experts on the impact of tariffs

Unsurprisingly, tariffs were a major topic of discussion at this year’s World Retail Congress. The recent 90-day pause on the majority of the US tariffs on China only highlighted how unpredictable the situation is. 

In a panel discussion, Pallak Seth, executive vice chairman of global manufacturing and sourcing platform PDS, Ian Bailey, executive chairman of Anko Global, and Ken Pilot, founder of Ken Pilot Ventures, discussed how retailers can navigate the new reality. 

“We were in a world where we focused on one supply chain to service all geographies. We have a choice now to diversify our sourcing base over time…it will take years not months,” Bailey said. 

This will involve moving suppliers to new geographies, building the capabilities of those new geographies and figuring out how to make the economics work.

Artificial intelligence can reduce retailers’ exposure by helping them order the right amount of product; however, Bailey believes the tariffs will create a divide between the winners and losers. 

“Some companies will get on the front foot, seeing this as an opportunity to capture. Others will bunker down, which i think will be a really risky strategy over time,” he said. 

Those retailers that source relatively few products from China are in a good position to gain market share, as are value players who are likely to retain at least some of the wealthier customers who drop down to their tier when costs go up due to tariffs. 

“The big challenge now is the tariff decrease. The boats are going back to crazy tariff pricing,” he pointed out, adding, “Speed to market is critically important.”

Check out our coverage from the opening day of the 2025 World Retail Congress here.