Amanda Vlietstra
Amanda Vlietstra covers how economic and operational pressures shape decision-making in the retail sector, with a particular focus on mid-sized businesses. She writes for InternetRetailing on the intersection of costs, disruption and investment, using data-led stories to show how retailers adjust strategy in changing market conditions. Her coverage stands out for treating survey findings and business indicators not as abstract numbers but as drivers of real choices about growth, technology and transformation.
Cost pressures and investment decisions in retail
Vlietstra’s business reporting often centres on the impact of rising costs on retailers’ ability to invest and expand. In pieces such as her coverage of how two-thirds of mid-sized retailers have put investment plans on hold as costs and disruption bite, she foregrounds the tension between strategic ambition and financial constraint. She highlights how energy prices, inflation and higher operating costs translate into delayed capital projects, paused technology upgrades or slowed expansion, making clear that macroeconomic trends quickly become boardroom trade-offs.
Her tone is analytical rather than alarmist. She uses headline statistics to frame the problem, then explores what they mean for areas such as store refurbishments, ecommerce platforms or logistics capabilities. By focusing on investment as a series of practical choices rather than generic “confidence levels,” she gives readers a clearer sense of how retailers are prioritising spend and where they are being forced to pull back.
Mid-sized retailers under operational strain
While large chains and global platforms dominate much retail coverage, Vlietstra repeatedly brings mid-sized retailers to the foreground. Her work shows how this cohort is squeezed between consumer expectations on one side and rising costs and supply chain disruption on the other. When she reports on investment being paused, she anchors the story in the specific vulnerabilities of mid-sized operators, who often lack the financial buffer of larger groups but face similar demands for omnichannel capability and efficient fulfilment.
She pays close attention to operational disruption as a business story in its own right. Disrupted supply chains, staffing challenges and logistics bottlenecks are treated not simply as background noise but as factors that directly influence whether a retailer can commit to new initiatives. This approach helps explain why otherwise healthy businesses defer digital or physical investments, linking day-to-day operational realities with longer-term strategy.
Data-led business reporting
Vlietstra’s articles are typically built around fresh data, surveys or research into retail performance and sentiment. She uses strong, quantifiable findings — such as the proportion of retailers freezing investment — as the spine of a story, then layers in context about why those numbers matter. Percentages and indices are not left to stand alone; she translates them into clear implications for margins, hiring plans and technology adoption.
Her writing is concise and accessible, using plain language to unpack business and economic concepts for a specialist retail audience. Rather than relying on anecdote, she prioritises reported numbers and structured findings, often contrasting different segments of the market or different strategic responses. This makes her coverage useful for readers who need to understand not only what retailers say they will do, but how widespread a given response is across the sector.
Focus on strategy, resilience and growth
Across her work at InternetRetailing, Vlietstra returns to themes of resilience and strategic adaptation. She tracks how retailers rethink growth plans under pressure, whether by delaying projects, reallocating budgets or seeking efficiency gains. Technology, logistics and customer experience tend to appear as levers in these stories, but the centre of gravity is always the business case: what justifies investment now, what must wait, and how companies weigh risk against potential return.
By consistently tying external shocks and cost swings back to concrete strategic choices, she offers a more grounded view of business conditions than generic discussions of “headwinds.” Her reporting helps explain why mid-sized retailers in particular change course, providing a structured view of how this part of the market navigates uncertainty.
4 more business journalists.
Adam McCulloch
Adam McCulloch covers business developments for Personnel Today, focusing on how changes in the wider economy affect hiring, job creation and workforce planning. He writes for an HR and people-management readership, treating business and labour market news through its impact on recruitment pipelines and day-to-day staffing decisions. He tracks labour market data, job postings and employer confidence as practical signals for employers. His reporting follows employment trends, recruitment cycles and sector shifts in vacancy volumes, linking turning points in hiring to external shocks, uncertainty and global pressures on business confidence. He often connects domestic hiring conditions to geopolitical tension and other international risks. His coverage is concise and news-driven, highlighting key figures, turning points and business implications to give HR and line managers a fast, fact-based view of how business conditions are reshaping recruitment, staffing and workforce plans.
Aidan Fortune
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Albert Toth
Albert Toth stands out for business coverage that tracks how boardroom and industrial decisions disrupt everyday life. He reports for The Independent, focusing on the intersection of workplace disputes, transport networks and the wider economy. His business beat centres on the real-world impact of strikes, industrial action and other developments that might otherwise feel abstract. He explains how these stories translate into costs, choices and disruption for the public, using clear, practical language. A core part of his work is service-led reporting on strikes and transport disruption, including guides to upcoming tube walkouts. He organises information around what readers need to plan: dates, routes, affected services and the scale and phases of expected disruption.
Alberto Nardelli
Alberto Nardelli covers the collision between European economic policy and global power politics for Bloomberg, tracking how decisions in Brussels shape trade, industry and business exposure to geopolitical risk. He focuses on EU trade rules and industrial strategy, especially when the bloc deploys tougher tools to manage global competition. His reporting follows how strategies on trade, technology, security, sanctions and sensitive technologies become concrete measures that affect companies, markets and cross-border supply chains. He closely reads official documents, confidential drafts and the fine print of EU decisions, explaining how new instruments are designed, negotiated and presented inside institutions. His work often centers on the EU’s response to China, global trade tensions and measures aimed at de-risking, screening investments and protecting critical infrastructure, with stories that spell out sector exposure, policy levers and the diplomatic context behind key decisions.