Graham Soult BA (Hons) MA FIPM
Graham Soult is a high-street champion who founded the retail consultancy CannyInsights.com in 2010.
Based in Gateshead but working all over the UK and beyond, Graham’s expertise supports independent and multiple retailers as well as landlords, councils and BIDs, helping businesses and places to improve their offer and messaging.
Graham has visited over 600 retail centres across the UK, sharing insights and helping revitalise town centres, often working as a “Retail Cupid” to match empty shops with the expanding businesses that want to trade there. With a mantra that the high street is evolving, not dying, Graham is well known for his positive and inspiring take on how town and city centres can successfully navigate change.
Described by BBC Look North as “the region’s best-known retail expert” and by ITV as “a North East Mary Portas”, Graham frequently appears in the media and is a popular keynote speaker. As an on-screen talking head, recent major TV appearances include the Netflix/Channel 5 documentaries “Inside Greggs 24/7”, “24 Hours in Tesco” and “24 Hours in Lidl”.
Graham also serves as chairman of the North East business network Durham Business Group, is an elected Fellow of the Institute of Place Management (IPM), and contributed as an Expert to the government’s High Streets Task Force (2019–2024).
Graham’s specialisms
Graham’s project examples
Durham – Retail Cupid
Funded by City of Durham Parish Council as the second phase of the Indie Durham City business support project, Graham’s Retail Cupid work involves matchmaking occupants with vacant premises and acting as a key point of contact for independent and national businesses wishing to trade in the city.
Retail Cupid support is available free of charge to help matchmake any business with available premises in Durham city centre, and is a proactive approach to tackling the issue of vacancy at the same time as supporting and encouraging local enterprise.
To date, Graham’s matchmaking has helped secure half a dozen new businesses for the city centre, while many other businesses – which have either secured premises themselves, haven’t found the right unit yet, or have ultimately decided against moving forward – have benefited from his independent support and advice.
Malmesbury – Unpacking Your Place
Malmesbury, in Wiltshire, is a town with much to commend it, including, for example, a compact and historic town centre, a retail and hospitality offer dominated by some superb and distinctive independent businesses, the visitor attraction of Malmesbury Abbey, a location that acts as a gateway to the Cotswolds, and a good amount of cultural activity.
However, in 2023, the closures of the town’s anchor retailer, as well as all the high-street banks, had created a situation where, for the first time, Malmesbury did have some medium-term voids, even if the overall vacancy rate remained relatively low by national standards.
Against this backdrop, Malmesbury Town Council was keen to bring together Malmesbury’s place leaders to talk and share ideas about the future of the town, and, with the help of an external high-street expert, to turn these aspirations into an action plan. Graham was therefore commissioned to deliver an “Unpacking Your Place” workshop, and, several months later, a follow-up “What Comes Next?” session.
This second event aimed to open up the conversation to a much wider group of businesses, and, in particular, to verify that the agreed areas of action were indeed the right ones, and clarify the next steps in taking those actions forward, particularly in relation to setting up a business network. Around 30 local business people attended the second event.
A newly active traders’ group – as well as a WhatsApp group for day-to-day communications – emerged as a direct result of the second workshop, after independent traders and business owners recognised the essential need for a business networking group for the town.
Councillor Gavin Grant, who organised the session on behalf of Malmesbury Town Council, said:
“It was fantastic to have a nationally recognised expert take time with us and for our local business community to respond so positively to the session.”