How The Association of Retail and Consumer Professionals found a partner that shows up across every pillar of their member experience
Chris Conroy is Vice President of Content & Member Engagement for The Association of Retail and Consumer Professionals (ARC), serving professionals at the intersection of Category Management, Shopper Insights and Space Planning. We sat down with him to hear how a partnership with The Presentation Company (TPC) has allowed ARC to deliver greater value to its members and what other associations can learn from it.
Throughout his career, including years at Kraft Heinz, Conroy watched CPG professionals confuse delivering insights with driving action. The data was strong. The analysis was solid. But walking out of a meeting with a nod wasn’t the same as walking out with a decision.
“Your job isn’t to pull data. Your job is to make somebody make a different decision about what they were going to do.”
That gap is what led ARC to forge a partnership with TPC, bringing storytelling in as a key member development opportunity and a practical enabler of category management.
The case for storytelling as a business process
For Conroy, storytelling isn’t just a communication style. It’s a business process that he recognized as a natural fit for the work ARC’s members already do, and adaptable enough to work across any function, industry, or role. And as AI reshapes work, that process is only becoming more critical. Research supports the urgency: 49% of senior executives say their people struggle not because they lack knowledge, but because they can’t execute on it.
For ARC’s members, that shift is personal. Category management has historically been a “data people” function. But as AI accelerates data mining and content creation, the value increasingly depends on human input. Can you shape thinking? Can you move a retailer to take an item in? Can you convince a manufacturer to change an innovation strategy?
Answering those questions requires a repeatable process for understanding your audience and crafting messages that connect. That reframe—storytelling as the core enabler of category management, not just presentation polish—is what made the capability resonate so quickly with ARC’s membership.
Building it into the fabric of the member experience
ARC’s partnership with TPC has never been built around a single event. From the beginning, the goal was to find a partner who could show up across the three pillars of the member experience: training, content, and events.
“We heard from our members that once a year is not enough. We know we have to keep the conversation going.”
Over four years, that partnership has taken shape across nearly every major touchpoint: the annual conference, webinars, in-person workshops, and ongoing thought leadership content. For ARC, finding a partner willing to show up across all those contexts and adapt to each one was essential.
That commitment to year-round engagement reflects something deeper about how Conroy thinks about ARC’s mission. Members aren’t just looking to keep up; they’re facing real pressure to evolve. “Our job is to help our members be great today, but more importantly prepare them for what’s coming at them in the future.”
What ARC looked for in a partner
Conroy comes back to three priorities—the three C’s.
- Content has to go beyond best practices and give members something they can apply immediately.
- Capability means helping members build a skill that compounds over time.
- Community is where it comes together, and the best partners contribute to conversations across the membership, creating shared language and reinforcing how members learn from each other.
“Partners that can deliver on one or all of those C’s are super important to us. They have to have that mindset of ‘we’re going to elevate.’ We want people that can build with us.”
In TPC’s case, two additional qualities have made the partnership even more successful over time.
Credibility that transfers. “If you want your association to be credible, you’ve got to find partners you can stand behind.” When members see TPC attached to a session or content, expectations are already set, and that credibility reflects back on ARC. “I’ve had conversations where someone said they heard about ARC through TPC.”
Flexibility. The partnership has evolved as ARC’s needs have evolved. “TPC didn’t come in and say, here’s our solution, you’re going to do it or not. You’re open to the conversations. That’s a really important selling point.”
An unexpected change from within
A surprising benefit has been internal. ARC’s own team now uses the storytelling framework in their planning and communications. When one team member recently presented a major initiative, every question raised on one slide was already answered by the next. “We got to yes quicker. It was just a natural conversation.” When a partnership starts improving how the association itself operates, it’s no longer just serving the membership; it’s part of the infrastructure.
What Conroy would tell another association executive
“I do think TPC is onto a business process, not just a storytelling framework. Storytelling applies to every function, at every level.”
The urgency is only growing. “As we think about what’s going to get automated in AI, those who still have reasons for being are those who can tell a good story, engage, and be consultative.”
“If we’re not delivering content, not elevating capabilities, members are going to ask what the value is. That’s why we have to have partners like TPC.”
The Presentation Company (TPC) partners with associations to bring practical storytelling training to their members. To learn more about what that could look like for your association, we’d welcome a conversation.