Described on BBC Look North as “the region’s best-known retail expert”, and by ITV as “a North East Mary Portas”, retail consultant Graham Soult is often named as being among the most influential retail people on Twitter. He owns and runs the retail consultancy business CannyInsights.com.
He has appeared regularly on TV, on radio, and in the press, including BBC’s The One Show, BBC News, The Guardian, Retail Week, Wired and Forbes, and is a frequent speaker on retail and marketing issues at conferences and seminars.
Graham is a Fellow of the Institute of Place Management (IPM), and is also an Expert within England’s High Streets Task Force, an initiative to support communities and local authorities in transforming their high streets.
He also manages the Shop Chester-le-Street project, a successful business support and promotion campaign that has been running since April 2017. That project has had several aims to date: to fill empty units in the town centre; make Chester-le-Street and its businesses more visible online; and support and champion independent retailers, through business mentoring and marketing training.
This background makes Graham well qualified to support Durham independent businesses, and to help them spread the word about what they offer.