Tom Stephens Senior Consultant

Tom is founder and co-owner of Brand Strategy Consultants and a senior consultant at McMillanDoolittle. BSC was founded in 1994 and is retained by clients in retail, manufacture of private label and branded products, food brokerage, and store and package design. It has conducted business in Canada, The United States, Italy, Britain, Holland, The Caribbean and South Africa on behalf of a wide network of clients. Tom has been a frequent guest speaker at conferences throughout North America and in May, 2002 addressed a major conference in Amsterdam. In June 2002, Tom developed a series of classes in Private Label Marketing for St. Joseph’s University, Philadelphia and in November, 2002 was Moderator of a major industry seminar investigating the “Re-Design of the Centre Store” in Chicago. Tom also writes a monthly column “Inside the Box” for PL Magazine, North America’s leading industry publication and is about to commence writing a monthly column for a similar Trade Magazine in Turkey.

Loblaw Companies, 1988 to 1994
Seven years as Executive Vice President of President’s Choice International, a division of Loblaw Brands Limited, Tom was responsible for the development of the President’s Choice program in the United States and Bermuda. He introduced President’s Choice in 16 retail chains with over 2000 stores in 36 states. The products and programs established under his leadership are recognized throughout the industry as the most significant achievement in the arena of “upscale premium private label” in the US.

Woolworths South Africa, 1969 to 1988
Nineteen years with Woolworths (Pty) Ltd in South Africa, a chain modeled on Europe’s leading food and clothing chain, Marks and Spencer. Holding increasingly senior executive positions, Tom’s achievements were initially in the field of fashion clothing procurement and then moved to the food arena, where he was involved from the outset in marketing, designing and implementing the transition of a 100% national brand supermarket division to 100% corporate (store) brand in two years. The highly perishable food business necessitated designing and building an “in house” national distribution network for perishable and frozen foods, which was Tom’s responsibility, drawing on his extensive travel to the UK with Marks and Spencer and its suppliers. He was instrumental in changing the entire standard trawling and fresh catch handling practices for the fishing industry in South Africa. During Tom’s last two years with the business, prior to emigrating to Canada he was responsible for developing the strategy and infrastructure for a company wide computerization of store operating systems, order placement and inventory management.