Our People

Established by industry experts with over 70 years combined experience, devoting all efforts in improving the profitability and ultimately the survival of independent business.

The IRC vision is to create an unparalleled level of one on one support, a true partnership, ensuring independents stay relevant to the upcoming generations of buyers.

We re-educate, rejuvenate and elevate retailers and supply partners on a new journey of modern retailing.

By aligning them with vital business checkups, recommended proven strategies and critical best practice initiatives. All of this is captured in our bespoke one-billing central billing management portal.

Headed by retail champion Josh Zarb and his expert team; Senthil Jayaraman, Summer Gartrell and Emily Lucas, their bespoke offering brings together the best there is in financial acumen, leading technology, strategic marketing, innovation and business know how.

Josh Zarb, Chief Executive Officer

Josh has over 20 years’ experience assisting Australian independent retail businesses at every
level.  Previously holding roles in Retail Management, Store Management in some of Australia’s major retail chains, General Management and Group General Management. He holds an honours degree in statistics. This unique love for numbers yet love for people has served him well to date. He is always forward thinking with his hands on support for sales, training, digital and traditional marketing, buying and wholesale and general business assistance. At IRC, Josh manages the direction of the business and ensures a direct personal relationship with each and every partner.

Senthil Jayaraman, Chief Technology Officer

Senthil has more than 2 decades of senior IT experience with his financial orientated business systems and business intelligence in wide use all round Australia. He has worked for startups to big financial corporations. Senthil has a ‘hawk-eye’ when it comes to attention to detail and is very passionate on automating the mundane routines in software systems. He has designed and developed the entire central billing suite of systems and integrated with CRM and ERP in his previous roles.

When offline, he is a very keen gardener and is an avid cyclist, he also loves to watch his boys playing cricket on the weekends. Senthil's role at IRC will fundamentally be managing the smooth operation of our exclusive ‘One Billing’ and communication platforms.

Emily Lucas, Digital Marketing Executive

Emily is a digital marketing and content specialist with 10 years’ experience in supporting small to medium business owners across a variety of retail industry sectors including jewellery, giftware, homewares, books, media, entertainment, and pet care. Having worked behind a retail counter herself for many years, Emily went on to establish a career in managing digital campaigns from creation through to execution, across a variety of mediums. Understanding a retailer’s time constraints and challenges in keeping up to date with an ever-evolving digital landscape, Emily is a passionate and ever-constant student of the field who loves to teach, share knowledge, and find ways to turn often complex subjects into understandable, actionable goals for business owners.

Summer Gartrell, Head of Marketing

With over 17 years’ experience in supporting independent retailers, and over 6 years’ experience working in the entertainment and media industries, Summer has an extensive background in knowing the fundamentals in what’s needed for success in retail. 

Summer is a quality focused creative, and a passionate self-starter who is known for creating some of the most brilliant call to action campaigns available with her incredibly talented award-winning team. She has extensive experience in B2B and B2C marketing and service delivery and has always taken a collaborative approach in working with a large group of differing independent business wants and needs. There’s not much Summer doesn’t know about all aspects of retail marketing. Summer manages all our Marketing, Networking and Communications functions at IRC.

The Independent Retail Collective are independent retail specialists. Trust in our expertise, so you can focus on yours.

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