Anatoliy Korolenko is a retail real estate and development executive with more than a decade of experience leading growth, portfolio strategy, construction, and facilities for some of the world’s most recognized consumer brands. Currently leading Real Estate and Development for Nestlé Nespresso SA, he is responsible for shaping the brand’s U.S. retail footprint from market strategy and site selection through lease negotiations, design, construction, and ongoing portfolio optimization. Join host David Kepron and Anatoliy as they discuss Nespresso store concepts, customer engagement and how a brand ethos comes to life in a retail store.
ABOUT ANATOLIY KOROLENKO
Anatoliy’s LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anatoliykorolenko/
BIO:
Anatoliy Korolenko is a retail real estate and development executive with more than a decade of experience leading growth, portfolio strategy, construction, and facilities for some of the world’s most recognized consumer brands.
Currently leading Real Estate and Development for Nespresso USA, Anatoliy is responsible for shaping the brand’s U.S. retail footprint—from market strategy and site selection through lease negotiations, design, construction, and ongoing portfolio optimization.
His work combines consumer and market analytics with real estate economics to identify growth opportunities and translate brand strategy into high-performing physical retail environments.
Prior to Nespresso, Anatoliy held a senior development and facilities leadership role with EssilorLuxottica, supporting a large multi-brand retail portfolio that included Lens Crafters, Sunglass Hut, and Ray-Ban.
Throughout his career, he has focused on the intersection of real estate, customer experience, and business performance—building strategies that treat physical retail not simply as a distribution channel, but as an important driver of customer acquisition, brand engagement, and long-term growth.
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SHOW INTRO:
Welcome to Episode 92 of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast and my conversation with Anatoliy Korolenko – who leads the Real Estate and Development for Nespresso USA.
In every episode we follow our catch phrase about having “Dynamic Dialogues About DATA: Design, Architecture, Technology and the Arts.”
And as we continue on this journey, we’ll continue to invite guests on our journey that are thought provoking futuris ts, AI technology mavens, retailers, international hotel design executives as well as designers and architects of brand experience places.
We’ll talk with authors and people focused on wellness and sustainable design practices as well as neuroscientists who will continue to help us look at the built environment and the connections between our mind-body and the built world around us.
If you like what you hear on the NXTLVL Experience Design show, make sure to subscribe, like, comment and share with colleagues, friends and family.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is always grateful for the support of VMSD magazine.
VMSD brings us, in the brand experience world, the International Retail Design Conference. I think the IRDC is one of the best retail design conferences that there is bringing together the world of retailers, brands and experience place makers every year for two days of engaging conversations and pushing us to keep on talking about what makes retailing relevant.
You will find the archive of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast on VMSD.com.
Thanks also goes to Shop Association the only global retail trade association dedicated to elevating the in-store experience.
SHOP Association represents companies and affiliates from 25 countries and brings value to their members through research, networking, education, events and awards. Check then out on SHOPAssociation.org
Today, EPISODE 92… I talk with Anatoliy Korolenko who leads Real Estate and Development for Nespresso USA … This conversation is effectively based on a tour that we took of the Nespresso flagship store on 5th Ave. at the corner of 16th St. in New York. We cover a lot of ground about how a store is laid out how elements of storytelling merchandising experience and design and construction all come together to make memorable moments of relevant engagement.
We’ll get into all of that in a minute but first a few thoughts…
I've been working in the world of retail design for more than 30 years and there are subjects that have been foundational to my early learning from my first employer Joe Weishar at New Vision Studios, which I've talked about before in previous episodes.
Not often do you find most of them beautifully executed in one store. But that was exactly my impression when getting a tour of the Nespresso store on 5th Ave. Corner of 16th St. in New York.
Nespresso was founded in 1986 as a Nestlé subsidiary after employee Eric Favre invented a single-serve pressurized coffee system inspired by a popular Roman espresso bar.
Favre visited Rome's Sant'Eustachio café and observed how intermittent water pumping created superior aeration and crema, leading him to design a capsule-based extraction prototype.
1986 Launch: Nespresso S.A. was officially founded, rolling out its first machine (the C-100) and four coffee blends targeting offices in Switzerland, Japan, and Italy with limited initial success…
A Couple decades later Nespresso was a global coffee powerhouse and the company opened its first standalone boutique in Paris in 2000 and later enlisted actor George Clooney as the face of the brand in 2006 to drive global luxury appeal.
Now it's great to have someone who is a famous face to help promote a brand but no matter what happens in terms of marketing and advertising if the store doesn't deliver on expectations you're still likely gonna be in trouble in growing your retail footprint.
Nespresso sells a considerable amount of their product online but in order to drive brand love a deeper more physical experience is needed and that means store Has to deliver something special if people are making the effort to get off their couch and get on those sales floor.
Well-considered physical touchpoints become critical in terms of how the customer journey unfolds and the experience that customers engage in and later talk about after visiting the physical location.
People who work there need to be experts since customers are better informed now than they have ever been after deep searches on line .
So when customers come in the associate needs to know more and be a welcoming host who acts as a bit of a stage manger who facilitates how the theatre of the store will unfold.
Purpose of retail has moved beyond the simple acquisition of goods or services. Retail stores have acted as a place to exchange stories to learn about the news of the day and connect to brands whose ideological orientations you align with.
We've clearly moved from a place where retail was transactional into an experience based economy and now as Joe Pine would put it, we have moved into a place call the Transformation Economy.
Here, customers expect so much more than just the product or service they're paying for.
Experiences need to leave customers with a sense of a transformation. Deeper, more lasting experiences customers engage in while in stores and the memories they leave with are not just a fun story to share, though that is often done too, but a way of seeing themselves perhaps in the world and in relation to that experience that deeply matter.
And while it is true that an increasing volume of business is done online, getting a cardboard box delivered to your front door the next day just can't compare to the aroma of delicious coffee in an environment that delights your other senses as well.
Sure, if you're interested in a commodity purchase, use an online resource and welcome the cardboard box. On the other hand if you're seeking something more, going to the store cannot be replaced.
Of course, once you arrive at the store one of the key components will be interaction with other humans. An AI bot interaction through an online purchase that offers up more opportunities for other things to buy because other people also bought them too,
is very different than being greeted with a smile by an expert who knows the world of their brand at both the customer and product level.
If I've showed up at the store I'm looking for something more and I will suggest that it's the human interaction you get face-to-face with an sales associate that is one of the key drivers to great brand experiences in retail places.
I've often thought of retail stores and hotels like theater performances.
A stage with performers but with no audience is called a rehearsal
and a theater with no performers is call an intermission.
When performers and patrons come together in a place, magic happens. The energy changes and the exchange is much deeper.
Actors live on audience feedback and audience members expect performers to bring them into an imagined world were time shifts and for that 2 hour block they are someplace else.
The sales associate and customer interaction works much the same way the store then simply as a stage set for the stars of the show customers sales associates and let us not forget products. Everything you do inside the store is geared towards telling the story supporting the actors and audience members and bringing them along on the story that unfolds in chapters or acts.
So it's not surprising when you walk into a store like the Nespresso flagship on 5th Ave. at the corner of 16th St. in New York, that the story of Nespresso so comprehensively and confidently comes alive.
From interaction stations that are very analog where you can experience the aroma of various coffees from around the world and if you like, free of charge, create your own coffee drink pour it into real glassware that when held in your hand creates a sense of comfort and familiarity.
Sure the Nespresso store cells great coffee in a number of variations but the flagship store does much more than that.
It welcomes you into a world of surprise and delight where customers interact with both analog and digital touchpoints; where they learn about the making of coffee and Nespresso’s extraordinary sustainability program and how their capsules are recycled.
And then it takes you off of the main selling floor and allows you to descend the digitally enrobed case staircase walking “into the poor” to a members lounge that is not only for members… it is for everyone.
This place is designed to be reminiscent of what your own home may be complete with vinyl record player, a coffee bar where you can pour yourself another - free of charge - drink and spend time simply relaxing or chatting with the throngs of people that seem to always being showing up daily after 5:00 PM.
A lot of retailers and hotel brands push designed experiences through a cost benefit analysis.
Naturally minding their dollars and trying to understand where intention is being placed to drive impact - which usually translates to thinking about construction cost, altering employment practices and policies, considering the long-term needs of digital content management and a host of other things.
The problem is that that ROI spreadsheet often doesn't have other columns on it for the intangibles like Return on Innovation, Return on Creativity, Return on Novelty, Return on Experience and Return on Emotion,
all of which have become increasingly important in an experience and transformation based economy.
How do you put a number on the intangibles of surprise and delight and the body memory of an experience so well choreographed did it lose you thinking about it and sharing it with friends and family days later.
And this is where this episode's guest Anatoly Korolenko comes into our story.
Anatoliy currently leads Real Estate and Development for Nespresso USA, He is responsible for shaping the brand’s U.S. retail footprint from market strategy and site selection through lease negotiations, design, construction, and ongoing portfolio optimization.
His work combines consumer and market analytics with real estate economics to identify growth opportunities and translate brand strategy into high-performing physical retail environments.
Throughout his career, he has focused on the intersection of real estate, customer experience, and business performance—building strategies that treat physical retail not simply as a distribution channel, but as an important driver of customer acquisition, brand engagement, and long-term growth.
I caught up with Anatoly on a trip to New York where we found the space at the old Pentagram office off of Madison Park that was under renovation by the Porcelanosa company who was turning it into a beautiful new showroom.
So, during our conversation we lived through some sounds of circular saws, scaffolding being dismantled and some jackhammers breaking up a floor.
And what with it being New York there was the occasional ambulance siren that starts off in the distance and then tends to come up and park right below your window.
All good. We made it through. And we just chalked it up to being part of the authentic and unvarnished experience...
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ABOUT DAVID KEPRON:
LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/david-kepron-9a1582b
Websites:
https://www.davidkepron.com (personal website)
vmsd.com/taxonomy/term/8645 (Blog)
Email: david.kepron@NXTLVLexperiencedesign.com
Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidkepron/
NXTLVL Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nxtlvl_experience_design/
Bio:
David Kepron is a multifaceted creative professional with a deep curiosity to understand ‘why’, ‘what’s now’ and ‘what’s next’. He brings together his background as an architect, artist, educator, author, podcast host and builder to the making of meaningful and empathically-focused, community-centric customer connections at brand experience places around the globe.
David is the Retail Studio Principle at Little Diversified Architectural Consulting (Little) and a former VP - Global Design Strategies at Marriott International. While at Marriott, his focus was on the creation of compelling customer experiences within Marriott’s “Premium Distinctive” segment which included: Westin, Renaissance, Le Meridien, Autograph Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Design Hotels and Gaylord hotels.
In 2020 Kepron founded NXTLVL Experience Design, a strategy and design consultancy, where he combines his multidisciplinary approach to the creation of relevant brand engagements with his passion for social and cultural anthropology, neuroscience and emerging digital technologies.
As a frequently requested international speaker at corporate events and international conferences focusing on CX, digital transformation, retail, hospitality, emerging technology, David shares his expertise on subjects ranging from consumer behaviors and trends, brain science and buying behavior, store design and visual merchandising, hotel design and strategy as well as creativity and innovation. In his talks, David shares visionary ideas on how brand strategy, brain science and emerging technologies are changing guest expectations about relationships they want to have with brands and how companies can remain relevant in a digitally enabled marketplace.
David currently shares his experience and insight on various industry boards including: VMSD magazine’s Editorial Advisory Board, the Interactive Customer Experience Association, Sign Research Foundation’s Program Committee as well as the Center For Retail Transformation at George Mason University.
He has held teaching positions at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), the Department of Architecture & Interior Design of Drexel University in Philadelphia, the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (L.I.M.) in New York, the International Academy of Merchandising and Design in Montreal and he served as the Director of the Visual Merchandising Department at LaSalle International Fashion School (L.I.F.S.) in Singapore.
In 2014 Kepron published his first book titled: “Retail (r)Evolution: Why Creating Right-Brain Stores Will Shape the Future of Shopping in a Digitally Driven World” and he is currently working on his second book to be published soon