2025 Presentations
Access the presentations from this year’s Special Sessions and Insight Sessions at the NACDS Total Store Expo.
Presentations
Saturday
Special Sessions
Harnessing the Economic Power of Family Caregivers and Older Adults – Opportunities for Retailers and CPGs
In June of 2025, AARP published the results of its quinquennial study of American Caregivers. This session, based on those findings, will highlight how the growing economic influence of family caregivers and older adults is reshaping the retail, consumer packaged goods (CPG) and pharmaceutical landscape. This session will explore how retailers and brands can tap into the evolving needs, preferences, and spending power of these critical consumer segments.
Featured Speakers:
- Rita Choula, MA, Senior Director of Caregiving, AARP Public Policy Institute
- Reema Jweied-Guegel, Senior Director, Enterprise Strategic Relationships, AARP
- Greg Klem, Vice President, Enterprise Strategic Relationships, AARP
- Kim Stokell, Marketing Director, Cardinal Health
- Michael Wysong, CEO, CARE Pharmacies Cooperative, Inc.
Sunday
Business Program
The Future of AI and Healthcare
The Business Program featured a compelling keynote from Peter Diamandis, MD, on the Future of AI and Healthcare, where he explored how artificial intelligence is exceeding human capabilities and revolutionizing patient care and healthcare delivery.
Featured Speaker:
- Peter Diamandis, MD
Founder, Executive Chairman, XPRIZE Foundation and Executive Founder and Director, Singular University
Monday
Insight Sessions
Reinventing Category Management: The Next Generation Powered by AI
Category Management is at a crossroads. Traditional tools and processes, designed decades ago, can no longer keep pace with today’s consumer complexity, competitive intensity, and demand for personalization. In this provocative session, Dr. Brian Harris, the original architect of Category Management, shares how the discipline is being reinvented for the modern retail landscape.
Featured Speakers:
- Julie Beck, Chief Customer Officer, Intent AI
- Dr. Brian Harris, President & CEO, Intent AI
2025 Pharmaceutical Trends, Issues, and Forecasts
This session will provide an analysis of the most up-to-date industry data, and highlight pharmacy trends, issues, and forecasts, in demographic sales and marketing, for 2025 and beyond.
Featured Speaker:
- Scott Biggs, Director, Supplier Services, IQVIA
From “Frictionless” to “Friction Efficient”: Using Problem Analysis to Guide Smarter Security and Sales Strategies
In the face of rising retail theft and operational pressures, retailers are seeking innovative strategies to balance loss prevention with seamless customer experiences. In this session, Dr. Cory Lowe of the Loss Prevention Research Council (LPRC) will challenge the popular but impractical ideal of “frictionless retail” and introduce a more grounded, impactful approach – “friction efficient” retail.
Featured Speaker:
- Cory Lowe, Ph.D., Director of Research, Loss Prevention Research Council (LPRC)
Patient-Centered. Tech-Enabled. Regulation-Ready.
This session will equip attendees—providers and innovators—with insights into a process to solutions and collaborative strategies that improve outcomes, streamline workflows, and align public policy with a new patient experience through the lens of the regulators via the NABP Innovation Institute.
Featured Speakers:
- Megan Butterfield, Vice President, Network Solutions, MedAdvisor Solutions
- John L. Colaizzi, Jr., PharmD, CCP, Group Vice President, Head of Enterprise Pharmacy Practice, Walgreen Co.
- James T. DeVita, RPh, DPh (Hon), Chief of Business Strategy and Implementation, National Association Boards of Pharmacy
