No More ORC Hero Shots

TalkLPnews Podcast Host Amber Bradley chats with Ed Fritz, Crime Prevention Supervisor from Boise Police Department, and Mike Zacher, Law Enforcement Vice President from Western States Organized Retail Crime (ORCA) about the ORCAs of the Southwest Conference, where the goal is not another victory-lap panel with recovered merch in the background.

They want the messy stuff: what broke, what worked, who needed to be in the room and how retailers, law enforcement and prosecutors can build stronger cases together.
Oceanside, California. October 26–28. Take a listen.

For more information and to register visit here.

Your Career Isn’t Going to Knock on Its Own Door

TalkLPnews Host Amber Bradley catches up with Dan Petrousek, Senior Vice President of Asset Protection at ULTA Beauty, live from the NRF PROTECT show floor.

Dan has spent almost 25 years at ULTA, but his path to the SVP seat was not a straight climb. He talks career pivots, building advocates, asking for the next opportunity and why stepping sideways can sometimes be the smartest move.

If you’re in LP and thinking about what your next move should be, this one is def worth your time.

Save the Shoplifter, Save Your Store?

Keeley Knowles earned the title “Britain’s most prolific shoplifter” for a reason. She sat down with TalkLPnews Editor-in-Chief Amber Bradley for a raw conversation about addiction, repeat theft, and the uncomfortable truth that some offenders know your store policies, schedules and blind spots better than you think. And then there’s the security guard who changed everything. Save the shoplifter, save your stores? You decide. Give it a listen.

Connect with Keeley:
Instagram

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ORC Doesn’t Get Solved in a Silo

TalkLPnews Podcast with Chad McManus from GROC

TalkLPnews Podcast Host Amber Bradley chats with Chad McManus, Chair of the Georgia Retailers Organized Crime Alliance (GROC), about how fast GROC has grown up over the years!  More importantly, what lessons it has learned as an organization after 16 years of connecting retailers and law enforcement.

They get into intel sharing, courtroom prep, booster blitzes and why these partnerships matter way before a case makes headlines.

Chad also talks about ways GROC can be a resource to other ORC associations out there – he’s sharing the wealth of knowledge GROC has gained for free!  Take a listen!

Learn more about GROC here.
Connect with Chad McManus.

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Cargo Theft is the New Million-Dollar Smash & Grab

Mitchell Jacobs has worked cargo theft at Walmart, security at Halliburton and United Airlines, and now runs safety and security for Lennox. He sat down with TalkLPnews Editor-in-Chief, Amber Bradley, to talk about the thing that actually keeps him up at night: a whole trailer can vanish off your dock and you won’t know for hours. His fix starts with something most leaders skip, which is standing still on the floor long enough to watch two associates try to check in 30 trucks an hour while you ask them to be perfect.

He also has a warning. Criminals are already using AI to mine broker boards and build fake bills of lading, and LP is too slow to catch up. Plus the leadership lesson he got from a YMCA boardroom in the 1980s, and why a closed case stopped feeling like a win.

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Iceland Foods is using AI…and it’s working

While American retailers are still asking “who’s actually implementing AI….that works,” Andy Edwards at Iceland Foods, a UK retailer with a thousand stores, is already using it — successfully. And guess what? He has use cases galore. He sits down with Editor-in-Chief of TalkLPnews, Amber Bradley, to share some of the most valuable including aisle theft alerts that hit a colleague’s device in real time, mis-scan detection at the checkout, and facial recognition built from concealment data.

Andy walks me through what’s actually working, what surprised him about customer behavior, and why his team isn’t afraid of being replaced. If you’re tired of vendors saying “we do AI” with no proof, this one’s for you.

Catch Andy in person at Apex, where he’ll be speaking on this exact topic. For more information about the Asset Protection Executive Xchange (APEX) conference, visit here.

For more information about the SAI Group that Andy references in this podcast, check them out here.

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Career growth and promotion are not the same thing

TalkLPnews podcast with Tim Bartlett, Vice President of Asset Protection, Dollar General

Tim Bartlett, Dollar General’s VP of Asset Protection, said that out loud, on the record, and meant it on the TalkLPnews Podcast with host Amber Bradley.
Six roles. Three promotions. And he’d make the same calls again.

Tim Bartlett spent 22 years moving sideways as much as up, through store ops, HR, and eventually LP, and has some strong opinions about why chasing the next title is the wrong obsession. This conversation covers lateral moves, building influence when you don’t have authority, and what he actually tells people who feel stuck.

Def worth your time.

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One Risk to Luxury Brands that No One Thinks About

TalkLPnews Podcast with Secur-It: One Risk to Luxury Brands that No One Thinks About

TalkLP Host Amber Bradley chats with two industry veterans with 30+ years each in retail loss prevention and luxury asset protection: Tony Caccioppoli and Angel Gutierrez from Secur-It. These guys have seen it all and they know exactly what retailers need and what they DON’T need!

In this episode, Tony and Angel explain why luxury retail security is about so much more than just having someone stand at the door. They’re redefining what a “Luxury Protection Officer” (LPO) looks like — Oh, and Tony has some serious law enforcement connections in major cities across the country. Just saying. Check it out for the inside scoop on what luxury brands truly need!

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AI Without the Server Farm: Here’s How

TalkLPnews and SAI Podcast: AI Without the Server Farm

TalkLPnews Host Amber Bradley is back with Pat O’Leary, Head of Sales of North America at SAI Group, for the next round of their AI rapid-fire chat. Spoiler alert: AI is no longer a buzzword, it’s a must have. The question isn’t if anymore, it’s how without drowning in hardware costs and getting stuck in a pilot that goes nowhere.

Pat breaks down why two-thirds of retailers can’t get past the pilot phase). Plus, vendor consolidation is having its moment, because nobody wants five different vendors doing five different things while their IT department silently plots revenge.

If you’re still shopping for one solution for shoplifting, another for self-checkout, and yet another for slip and falls… this episode is your wake-up call. Take a listen!

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Successful Leaders Rarely Follow a Straight Line

TalkLP Host Amber Bradley and Javier Leal, Vice President of Vallarta Supermarkets

TalkLP podcast host Amber Bradley welcomes the newest APEX Executive Council member into the HOT seat: Javier Leal, Vice President of Asset Protection and Security for Vallarta Supermarkets. Javier’s career is uniquely unconventional spending more than 28 years at Vallarta but it wasn’t always a straight path to the VP seat. Javier has worked his way up from unboxing product to VP running his own program for nearly 70 stores. 

In this episode, Javier chats about building an LP program from scratch, why “managing people” is the wrong move, and why locking everything up is rarely the answer. He also drops some gold for solution providers. Take a listen!

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