Retail People

Wendy Liebmann has been helping clients create high-impact marketing strategies for nearly a quarter of a century. Last year marked the 20th anniversary of How America Shops, a collection of reports Liebmann oversees devoted to American consumers’ changing behavior and attitudes toward where and how they shop.

Her findings make their way into The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Business Week, and the Australian native also makes frequent TV appearances to provide insight into the state of retailing and consumer shopping trends.

Colins Pentz opened Eagle Magic & Joke Store in 1899. Since then the store has called eight different Twin Cities’ locations home, and ownership has been passed down through the decades in apprentice-like fashion.

Magician Larry Kahlow took over in 1977, but he first eyed the store with his parents as a budding eight-year-old prestidigitator. Kahlow recently relocated the 109-year-old business to suburban Minneapolis, less than two miles from his Burnsville home.

From her perch at Fifth Avenue and 44th Street in New York, veteran retail analyst Dana Telsey runs an independent equity research and consulting firm focused on retail. Clients of Telsey Advisory Group (TAG) include money managers or investors needing information for a leveraged buyout, for example, or they might be mall developers looking to perfect a tenant mix.

Wahne Zheng’s retailing career began in the Olympic year of 1984, when he joined the Wang-fujing Department Stores Group in the government-appointed position of general manager. Today, Zheng is the department store group’s chairman, a position that includes directing the long-term activities of the 18-unit publicly traded chain based in Beijing.