Keynotes and Research Briefings
Bring the Future of Category research into your leadership team.
Optima's research-led keynotes and briefings help Category and commercial leaders understand where current models are coming under pressure, what advances in retailer capability, data and AI mean for their organisation, and where leadership attention is needed next.
Choose a Keynote or Leadership Session to bring an evidence-led perspective to a wider audience, or a Private Research Briefing to apply the findings to your own organisation. Both draw on the same research, and on first-hand experience from both sides of the buyer-supplier table.
Keynotes and research briefings drawn from
Together they form a rich, minable evidence base, built to show where Category Management, and the wider commercial function, are heading.
Sessions start from £1,950.
Keynotes and leadership sessions
Keynotes and leadership sessions take the research to a wider audience. Rather than debriefing the findings, they show what they mean in practice: where category and commercial models are under pressure, what it takes to get ready for an AI-driven, data-rich retail environment, and how to turn that into momentum across a team, function or conference audience.
Each session is built around a chosen theme or leadership challenge, combining clear, evidence-led insight with practical next steps. Audiences leave with a sharper understanding of the challenge in focus, a shared language for discussing it across functions, evidence that challenges established assumptions, and practical questions to take back into the business.
Example themes include:
• The Future of Category Management
• Reclaiming Category's Strategic Growth Role
• From More Data to Better Commercial Decisions
• AI-Shaped Commercial Decision-Making
• One Growth Logic: Aligning Category, RGM and Sales
• Building a Category-Led Commercial Culture
At a glance
FormatIn-person or virtual keynote or leadership session
Duration60 to 90 minutes, or a half-day
AudienceFrom a leadership team to a full conference
Who it's forExecutive and commercial leadership offsites, Category, Sales, Marketing and Insight town halls, customer and retailer meetings, industry events and conferences
Discuss a keynote or session →Private Research Briefing
A Private Research Briefing is the most direct way to engage with the research in a senior team setting. It is built for leadership teams that want to explore what the findings mean in their own context: where pressure is building, what the six themes suggest, and which capability and operating-model questions now matter most.
The session goes beneath the headline findings, into the sub-themes, qualitative insight and proprietary frameworks. It is deliberately discussion-led, and your leadership team leaves with a clearer, shared view of how Category and commercial decision-making are changing, a read on the themes that matter most to them, the questions that now need leadership attention, a substantive takeaway deck, and a clearer basis for deciding whether further assessment is worthwhile.
Leadership questions the briefing can help you examine:
• Where is our Category model becoming exposed as retailer data, analytics & decision systems advance?
• Which capabilities will matter most over the next three to five years, and where are we underpowered?
• How should Category, RGM, Sales and Marketing align around one coherent growth logic?
• Where is AI already changing commercial work, and where is its impact still being overstated?
• Where does Category influence real decisions, and where does it stop at analysis?
Sessions are led by Simon Dunn, founder of Optima Retail and a former Sainsbury's and Tesco buyer. Simon combines the original research with experience on both sides of the buyer-supplier table, keeping the discussion grounded in how commercial decisions are actually made.
At a glance
FormatVirtual or in-person
Group size4 to 15 participants
Duration90 minutes
Who it's forLeadership teams applying the research to their own context
TimingMost sessions arranged within 2 to 3 weeks of an introductory call
Optional add-onA CCAI capability benchmark: a short, directional snapshot of how your team compares with our 100+ supplier research benchmark, designed to start a conversation, not conclude one.
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