Gateshead-based Graham Soult is a high-street champion, digital marketing expert, and respected media commentator, who founded the retail consultancy business CannyInsights.com in 2010.
Graham regularly travels around the UK, and has visited more than 600 retail centres across the country over the last decade, picking up best practice at the same time as sharing his own advice and insights.
His high-profile work to track what has become of former Woolworths locations – most recently manifested in his 2024 “#Woolies15” research report – has generated plentiful media coverage, and helped to shine a light on the evolution of the high street.
In some locations, such as Durham, Graham is commissioned to work as a “Retail Cupid”, helping to increase occupancy and revitalise town centres by matching up vacant shops with the businesses that want to trade there.
“North East Mary Portas”
Described on BBC Look North as “the region’s best-known retail expert”, and by ITV as “a North East Mary Portas”, Graham Soult is often named as being among the most influential retail people on Twitter/X, where he has more than 16,000 followers.
Graham is a frequent keynote speaker on retail and high-street issues at conferences and seminars, and has appeared regularly on TV, on radio, and in the press, including BBC’s The One Show, BBC News, ITV News, LBC, The Guardian and Retail Week.
As an on-screen retail expert, recent major TV appearances include the Netflix/Channel 5 documentaries “Inside Greggs 24/7”, “24 Hours in Tesco”, “24 Hours in Lidl”, and “Inside Greggs at Christmas”.
A passionate advocate for building strong networks and partnerships, Graham is also the chairman of Durham-based networking and office services organisation Durham Business Group.
Graham holds a BA (Hons) in Architecture and an MA in Architecture and Town & Regional Planning from the University of Sheffield, and has been an elected Fellow of the Institute of Place Management (IPM), based at Manchester Metropolitan University, since 2018. IPM Fellow status is only available “to those that have reached a very high level of personal and professional achievement, within the industry.”
He also served as an Expert within the High Streets Task Force, a government initiative, managed by IPM between 2019 and 2024, to support communities and local authorities in England in transforming their high streets and strengthening local place leadership.
Maloprodajni svetovalec v Sloveniji
Graham first visited Slovenia as part of a postgraduate travel studentship, and has subsequently returned to the central European country more than a dozen times.
Not only is Slovenia a beautiful, green and welcoming country, but it is also an exemplar in terms of how it maintains clean, attractive and pedestrian-friendly town centres and public realm. Meanwhile, some of the country’s retail and hospitality businesses are genuinely world class in terms of the quality of their offer and service.
Graham has been attending the Slovene language short course at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) since 2022, and is currently studying in the third (Upper Intermediate) year, equivalent to CEFR-level A2. He is also an active member of The British-Slovene Society, which promotes cultural, educational and other relations between the two countries.
Graham is growing his network of Slovene professionals in the retail and place management fields, and is keen to undertake more work in, or related to, Slovenia in the future.
Contact Graham
You can follow Graham on Twitter (X), connect with him on LinkedIn or just drop him a message.