Retail & Consumer Goods

Vienna, VA – October 23, 2026 -- Target took three of the top honors at the 2026 RH-ISAC awards: Team of the Year, Cybersecurity Practitioner of the Year for senior threat intel analyst Chris De La Rosa, and a first-place finish in the Sharing & Collaboration Challenge team rankings. The Retail & Hospitality Information Sharing and Analysis Center announced the winners at its Member Celebration Dinner and Awards Ceremony on April 15 in Austin, Texas.

Crocs CISO Lena Taylor wins Peer Choice Award for CISO of the Year

Lena Taylor, CISO at Crocs, received the 2026 Peer Choice Award for CISO of the Year. The award goes to a thought leader whose experience adds strategic value to the wider community.

Vienna, VA – October 23, 2026 -- The Retail & Hospitality Information Sharing and Analysis Center (RH-ISAC) has scheduled 14 confirmed in-person cybersecurity workshops across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific for 2026, with a 15th planned for London in November.

Series opens in Singapore on 3 June and closes in Sydney on 11 November

The one-day events start in Singapore on 3 June, followed by Herndon, Virginia, on 11 June and Herzogenaurach, Germany, on 7 July. Stops in Natick, Massachusetts (29 July), Brampton, Canada (30 July), Bangalore, India (5 August), Louisville, Kentucky (13 August) and Richfield, Minnesota (18 August) complete the summer calendar.

The autumn run begins in Parsippany, N.J., on 16 September, then moves to Paris (25 September), Las Vegas (1 October), Vancouver (14 October), Atlanta (3 November) and Sydney (11 November). RH-ISAC has not yet released details for the London date.

Vienna, VA – October 23, 2026 -- The Retail & Hospitality Information Sharing and Analysis Center (RH-ISAC) has announced the 2026 schedule for its Regional Workshop series, a global program hosted in key markets across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. The workshops bring cybersecurity practitioners together for in-person collaboration, threat intelligence sharing and professional development.

RH-ISAC and IANS publish 2026 CISO Benchmark Report on 1 April

The workshop announcement follows a run of releases from the group. On 1 April 2026, RH-ISAC and IANS released the 2026 CISO Benchmark Report. It examines how cybersecurity leaders in retail and hospitality are handling economic pressure, evolving threats and the rapid rise of artificial intelligence.

Global – October 22, 2026 -- The NRF 4-5-4 Calendar adds a 53rd week to the retail reporting year roughly every five to six years, most recently in 2023, to keep sales comparisons aligned between years.

Calendar splits the year into 4-5-4 week months to match weekends and holidays

The voluntary industry guide divides the year into months of 4, 5 and 4 weeks. Comparable months contain the same number of Saturdays and Sundays, so like days are compared with like days in sales reporting. The layout also lines up holidays.

The format dates to an informal inter-industry discussion in the 1930s. Retailers had reported on a straight calendar, but weekends made up a growing share of sales while the number of weekends per month varied from year to year. Many stores adopted the 4-5-4 Calendar in the 1940s.

Miami – October 21, 2026 -- JIS Fall 2026 drew more than 11,000 jewelry professionals to the Miami Beach Convention Center on October 16–19, a 12% increase in attendance year over year.

Buyers from the U.S., Latin America and the Caribbean source holiday stock

The four-day show brought together jewelry retailers, manufacturers and industry professionals from across the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean and beyond. Buyers could purchase inventory for immediate delivery or place future orders ahead of the holiday season.

The show floor covered fine and fashion jewelry, gemstones and accessories, as buyers built their assortments for the coming months.

Organizer calls attendance record-breaking

Sara McDonough, Event Director of JIS, described the edition as one of the strongest in the event's history, citing record-breaking attendance, and said the connections made would continue well beyond the show.

New York – October 19, 2026 -- Swiss sports supplement brand KA-EX has appointed Aaron Heidebreicht as CEO North America, as its US distribution passes 4,000 points of sale following a national launch across 2,200 GNC stores in August 2026.

Heidebreicht to lead US strategy from Nashville

Heidebreicht brings more than 20 years of sports nutrition leadership. He is a former professional baseball player who held positions at GNC and Nutrabolt. At KAGED he served as Chief Commercial Officer, and most recently he ran Applied Nutrition's North American business as CEO.

At KA-EX, he is responsible for US commercial strategy, retail expansion and building out the North American team from Nashville, Tennessee. Founder and CEO Pedro Schmidt called North America the company's most important growth market and said KA-EX is investing in a dedicated US team.

Global – October 19, 2026 -- About 62% of security breaches still involve the human element, according to the 2026 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report. That figure is pushing retail and hospitality security teams to replace annual compliance videos with human risk management (HRM), which aims to change how employees respond to attacks in real time.

Scattered Spider uses AI voice cloning to turn help desk calls into footholds

Threat groups such as Scattered Spider scrape professional networks like LinkedIn to map organization charts and identify help desk staff and executives to impersonate. They then place high-pressure calls with AI-cloned voices, posing as locked-out employees. The goal is to get agents to reset a password and enroll multi-factor authentication (MFA) on a device the attacker controls.

Global – October 19, 2026 -- SupplyOne is offering beverage producers in-house digital label printing with order quantities starting at a single label, targeting brands that need faster launches without tying up capital in label inventory.

Digital printing cuts turnaround from weeks to days

Traditional flexographic printing stays efficient for long runs with stable artwork, but plate creation and setup slow frequent design changes and smaller batches. Digital systems skip plates and apply ink directly to the substrate. Turnaround is often days instead of weeks, and artwork changes and versioning add no setup time.

Short runs and micro-launches become economical, according to the source. Output matches traditional methods, with sharp edges and consistent color. Brands can also vary imagery, text or codes from can to can within the same run, which suits limited releases, seasonal SKUs, regional variants and collaborations.

Guangzhou – October 18, 2026 -- The Canton Fair launched its Buyers Alliance with 58 founding member companies from 32 countries and regions across five continents, as the 140th edition opened and the fair marked its 70th anniversary.

More than 140 overseas buyers attend the October 15 launch

The alliance was officially launched on October 15 at the Canton Fair Complex. More than 140 overseas buyers attended the ceremony.

Luís Vilariça, CEO of Joinco, Import & Export, Ltd., spoke about his company's long relationship with the fair. He said cooperation with Chinese suppliers had created growth opportunities for his business, and he pointed to the fair's role in supporting international business development.

Representatives of five member companies read a joint declaration in their native languages. Other members sent video congratulatory messages.

Downers Grove – October 16, 2026 -- Midwest grocer Fresh Thyme Market has placed five employees on Progressive Grocer's 2026 GenNext list, which recognizes emerging leaders in the grocery industry.

Honorees span category management, store operations and IT

The five honorees are Joe Sanchez, Deli Category Manager; Zachary Robbins, Store Director in Newport, Kentucky; Bri Chin, Natural Living Category Manager; Jared Anderson, Vegetable Category Manager; and Manny Perez, IT Network & Systems Infrastructure Manager.

Three of the five hold merchandising roles across deli, natural living and vegetables. The remaining two cover store-level leadership and technology infrastructure.