Author

Deborah Patton

Deborah is inspired by big ideas and pursues people, places and events that provide that magical glimpse of brilliance challenging the status quo. When she is not running The Robin Report you can find her hiking and boating in the Adirondacks with her husband Jon; gardening as a volunteer in the Riverside Park Conservancy; helping families, alongside her son Sam, make their original versions of his 44 Daughters dolls; walking the Hudson River Greenway from Battery Park to the Little Red Lighthouse; writing books (The Truth About Transformation), stories, and leadership articles; failing miserably trying to train her two irresistible young English Springer Spaniels; reading with enthusiasm the papers her son Max writes for his Master’s in philosophy; supporting her local museums and gardens—and being intellectually energized by the madness and magic of living in New York City.

Born in St. Louis, she has worked professionally in Los Angeles and New York. Her early career was spent directing marketing and producing events during the golden days at upscale magazines: Town & Country, HG, Connoisseur, Seventeen, Modern Bride. Changing gears, she was editorial director of the Gault Millau America city guides, bringing the iconoclastic voice of Christian Millau and nouvelle cuisine to the American market … and reuniting her with her second hometown Paris, where she went to L’École de Louvre to study art history during college at Pitzer College, the behavioral sciences/social justice school in the Claremont Colleges system. Pivoting to Nielsen Business Media, she ran corporate communications/marketing for their 56 magazines and 86 trade shows. She also pioneered Applied Brilliance, a multidisciplinary, thought leadership conference focused on emerging trends and macro shifts that impact us professionally and personally. The Robin Report connects all the threads in Deborah’s life through the cultural and sociological role that retail plays in our lives.

The Power of Story

We live in a commercial culture increasingly transforming itself into an endless series of stories. Disneyland/World. Universal. Woof Meow. Harry Potter World. Those are the ...
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Leadership in an Evolving Pandemic

Leading in a Time of Ambiguity Living though a pandemic is shadowed by nearly constant uncertainty.  We take three steps forward, two sideways and unfortunately, ...
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La Samaritaine: A Dazzling Makeover

Here’s one for the century. The reopening of La Samaritaine in Paris redefines the whole concept of a department store. In fact, “department” is immediately ...
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Four Startups Reinventing Retail

The Robin Report Innovators Network introduces you to startups with novel solutions that improve the performance and profitability of retail and brand operations. Our first ...
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Ten Leadership Lessons from 2020

In so many ways, the date of a new year is arbitrary.  In Western societies, we’re still on the Gregorian calendar, but there are plenty ...
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Gift Yourself

It’s the little things in life.  Would you rather get a $38 tube of lipstick in a utilitarian brown cardboard box … or in a ...
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Deborah Patton - The Art and Science of Retail - The Robin Report

The Art and Science of Retail

If you were to distill what consumers want from any retail transaction down to two factors, it would be convenience and experience. And these two ...
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Field Notes from the Midwest

There was a bright light shining during the post-holiday mall doldrums in St. Louis, Missouri. This midwestern city (full disclosure, my hometown) is constantly reinventing ...
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