AGENDA
WHY TO EXHIBIT OR TO SPONSOR?
Oct 14
Wednesday, October 14
USD $12,000.-
8:00 pm – 11:00 pm
VIP Dinner (separate registration required).
Oct 15
Thursday, October 15
USD $12,000.-
8:00 am – 6:00 pm
Sessions & Expo
2:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Sit-Down Lunch
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Closing Networking Cocktail
18:30 – 20:00
Closing Networking Cocktail
Oct 15
Thursday, October 15
7:30 am – 8:30 am
Registration & Breakfast
8:30 am – 8:45 am
Opening Remarks
Jorge Lizan
Managing Director Lizan Retail Advisors
New York, NY, United States
8:45 am – 9:15 am
Keynote
Culture Is the Concept: How a Juice Bar Became a Global Brand
Joe & The Juice’s rise across more than seventeen countries is less a story about juice than about belonging. Sebastian Vestergaard traces how an obsessive focus on culture — the music, the design, the energy, the “juicer” identity — became the actual product, and why that culture is the thing that survives translation when so many concepts lose their soul crossing borders. He reframes expansion as a people-andbrand challenge before a real-estate or operations one, and sets the tone for a day about building brands that travel without diluting what made them matter.
SPEAKER
Sebastian Vestergaard
Chief Growth Officer Joe & The Juice
Copenhagen, Denmark
9:15 am – 10:00 am
Panel
The Franchise Playbook: Scaling Global Restaurant Brands Across Latin America
A room full of operators who have carried some of the world’s most recognizable restaurant brands into new territory. From Jollibee’s global ambitions to the franchise engines behind Dairy Queen, Denny’s and Darden, this panel digs into the mechanics of cross-border growth: choosing the right master franchisee, adapting menu and format to local taste without breaking the system, and the unit economics that decide whether a market becomes ten stores or two hundred.
MODERATOR
Former CEO
Krispy Kreme
Mexico City, Mexico
Panelists
Peter Wright
Vice President of Franchising
Jollibee Group North America
Los Angeles, CA, United States
Brandon Gerstner
General Manager, Latin America & Caribbean
Dairy Queen
Minneapolis, MN, United States
Mark Levis
Sr. Director of New Business Development
Denny’s
Spartanburg, SC, United States
Glenn Curth
Manager of International Development
Darden
Orlando, FL, United States
Sam Rothschild
Chief Strategy and International Officer
Slim Chickens
Fayetteville, AR, United States
10:00 am – 10:45 am
Panel
Location as Strategy: How Destination F&B Brands Choose Where to Land
For brands like Big Mamma and % Arabica, the address is part of the product — a single, perfectly chosen site can launch a brand in a new city, while the wrong one quietly drains it. Savills’ Sam Foyle brings the view from the deal side: where capital and concepts are actually moving, how prime retail corridors are shifting across the Americas, and what separates a location that builds a brand from one that merely fills it. The panel unpacks how design-led F&B concepts approach site selection, flagship strategy, and the trade-off between footfall, rent, and brand-building real estate.
MODERATOR
Sam Foyle
Co-Head of Global Retail
Savills
London, United Kingdom
Panelists
Benjamin Thouverez
Chief Development Officer
Big Mamma
Paris, France
John Papastergiou
Master Franchisee Canada & Mexico %
Arabica
Toronto, ON, Canada
Ed Loftus
CEO
Jamie Oliver
London, United Kingdom
10:45 am – 11:15 am
Coffee Break
11:15 am – 11:45 am
Panel
The Operator’s Advantage: Building the Platform That Brings Global Brands to Market
Behind many of the world’s biggest brands in Latin America and Europe stands an operator most consumers never see. Over three decades, Alsea built a multi-brand, multi-market platform — Starbucks, Domino’s, Burger King, Chili’s and more — that turns a foreign concept into thousands of locally run, locally relevant stores. Drawing on Alsea’s expansion across the Americas and into Spain, France and beyond, Federico Tejado opens up the operator’s side of global growth: how the right platform partner absorbs the risk of market entry, the discipline of running a portfolio of brands at once, and why — for most international brands — the operating partner, not the concept, is what decides whether a market scales
Speaker
Federico Tejado
Board Member
Alsea
Master Franchisee
Crumbl
Mexico City, Mexico
11:45 am – 12:30 pm
Panel
PANEL The Experience Economy: Turning Retail Space into a Destination
When convenience moves online, physical space has to earn the trip. This panel brings together the operators and IP owners turning real estate into entertainment — Dave & Buster’s and Chuck E. Cheese on the economics of play, dwell time, and the experience-as-anchor model, and Hasbro on how brand licensing and beloved IP become the engine behind physical attractions. The conversation explores how entertainment formats drive foot traffic, why groups and families are among the most defensible audiences in retail, and how licensed experiences travel into markets like Mexico.
MODERATOR
TO BE CONFIRMED
Panelists
Adrián J. Romero
CEO
Timeless Brands
Monterrey, NL, Mexico
Antonio Bautista
President, International Development
Dave & Buster’s
Coppell, TX, United States
Sandra Home
Sr. Manager Location Based Experiences & Promotions
Hasbro
Los Angeles, CA, United States
12:30 pm – 13:15 pm
Panel
The Luxury Equation: Building Desire in Latin America
True luxury expands on its own terms. This panel convenes the maisons, the group strategists, the developer, and a homegrown craft house to examine what it takes to bring luxury to Latin America without eroding the exclusivity that defines it. Louis Vuitton and Brunello Cucinelli on heritage, flagship experience, and “quiet luxury”; Richemont on managing desire across a portfolio of maisons; Tane on luxury made and sold in Mexico; and Mira on securing and shaping the prime real estate where all of it lives. The throughline: in luxury, location, craft, and narrative are inseparable from the product itself.
MODERATOR
TO BE CONFIRMED
Panelists
Luca Marcato
Head of Business Development & Real Estate
Brunello Cucinelli
Milan, Italy
Marco di Santo
Chief Commercial and Operations Officer (CCOO)
Tane
Mexico City, Mexico
13:15 pm – 14:30 pm
Lunch
14:30 pm – 15:00 pm
Keynote
15:00 pm – 15:45 pm
Panel
Reinventing the Mall: Designing the Shopping Centers Global Brands Want to Be In
Every expansion plan eventually runs into the developer. As e-commerce absorbs the transactional and experience becomes the differentiator, the shopping center is being rethought from the ground up — less corridor of stores, more curated destination. This panel turns the lens to the developers building the malls and mixed-use centers of Mexico and the wider region: what they’re designing for the next decade of international tenants, how they assemble the right blend of anchors, F&B, entertainment and flagship retail, how they court the brands they most want to land, and how they underwrite ambitious projects as consumer behavior shifts. With Citelis and fellow developers, brands get a candid look at how the people who build retail environments weigh risk, tenant mix, and the experiences that keep shoppers coming back.
MODERATOR
TO BE CONFIRMED
Panelists
Eduardo Ramírez
CEO
Citelis
Monterrey, NL, Mexico
Tomás Uribe
Co-Founder
Jaguar Capital
Co-Founder
LaHaus
Medellin, Colombia
Eduardo Pérez Marchant
CEO
Parque Arauco
Santiago, Chile
Roberto Pulido
CEO
Mira
Mexico City, Mexico
15:45 pm – 16:30 pm
Panel
Beyond the Transaction: Scaling Service and Lifestyle Concepts
Not all retail sells a product off a shelf. This panel brings together concepts built on repeat visits, membership, and community — fitness, salon suites, children’s education, and lifestyle goods — to explore how service-led formats expand. Planet Fitness on accessible membership at scale, Phenix Salon Suites on the asset-light model that turns professionals into tenants, Kids&Us on franchising an education experience, and Ambiente Gourmet on building a lifestyle brand around the home. The common thread: when the format depends on relationships and routine, growth is as much about people and operations as it is about square footage.
MODERATOR
TO BE CONFIRMED
Panelists
David Raya
Country Manager
Planet Fitness
Mexico City, Mexico
Brian Kelley
President & CEO
Phenix Salon Suites
San Diego, CA, United States
Patricia Vélez
CEO
Ambiente Gourmet
Medellin, Colombia
16:30 pm – 17:00 pm
Coffee Break
17:00 pm – 17:45 pm
Panel
Fashion on the Move: How Apparel and Footwear Brands Win New Markets
Fashion expansion lives and dies on reading the consumer faster than anyone else. This panel spans the spectrum — Ardene’s high-velocity value fashion and accessories, Etam’s French heritage in women’s wear and lingerie going international, and On’s premium, performance-led rise from Swiss start-up to global sportswear force. Different price points, one shared challenge: choosing markets, formats, and locations that fit the brand, and managing the inventory and real-estate rhythm specialty retail demands. The conversation looks at what it takes to translate European and North American playbooks into Latin America — and where the regional consumer is rewriting them.
MODERATOR
TO BE CONFIRMED
Panelists
Annie Cardinal
Vice- President, International
Ardene
Montreal, QC, Canada
José Gómez Chief
Development Officer / Member of the Managing Board
Etam
Paris, France
17:45 pm – 18:15 pm
Panel
The Store as Stage: Designing Retail Experiences People Travel For
Melissa Gonzalez built her reputation pioneering experiential and pop-up retail — the idea that a physical store is a storytelling medium, not just a point of sale. As a retail design strategist at MG2, she reveals the how behind the experiential thread running through the day: the design, immersion, and “drop” mechanics that turn a store into a destination and a brand into a movement. She makes the case for what physical retail becomes when online owns convenience — why space matters more, not less — and shows how thoughtful design earns the three things expanding brands need most in a new market: attention, dwell time, and loyalty.
SPEAKER
Melissa Gonzalez
Principal & Shareholder
MG2
New York, NY, United States
18:15 pm – 18:30 pm
Closing Remarks
18:30 pm – 20:00 pm
Cocktail Reception
Oct 16
Friday, October 16
8:00 am – 8:30 am
Registration
9:00 am – 14:30 am
Retail Safari of Mexico City