Katya Denike
Holland and Barrett
Also available as audio
Heritage brands carry customer equity that goes beyond transaction history—emotional connections spanning generations create both a competitive moat and a transformation constraint that requires different change management than pure-play digital retailers.
Leaders from high-velocity markets (post-90s Eastern Europe) may bring innovation speed to legacy organizations, but they need explicit onboarding to understand how deeply embedded brand memory shapes customer behavior and loyalty levers in 150-year-old businesses.
Customer research in heritage retail should specifically surface intergenerational narratives and memory-based loyalty; this insight becomes a strategic asset when designing modernization roadmaps that preserve emotional equity while scaling innovation.
Conversation 59
Let's say one is I didn't really get fully what it means to work for 150-year-old brand, right? I'm coming from Eastern European background, where I was like revolutions, 90s. So like the oldest businesses are 20 years old and having something there, having the company which has like such a heritage where you interviewing your customers and they have a memories of their grandma taking them to the store. It was something really important and tough for me to grasp.
Katya Denike, Aligning Teams and Changing Mindsets: Insights from Holland & Barrett’s CPO at Holland and Barrett
Katya Denike
OFFBounds Source · 59· Holland and Barrett
