‘Equality’ appeared 26 times in NRF’s Big Show schedule in 2022. This year? Not even once.

In 2022, the National Retail Federation made it plain that it was championing diversity, equity, and inclusion.

An NRF blog post in advance of that year’s “Big Show” conference, which is now accessible only through the Internet Archive, promised that the gathering would “highlight [the] importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Multiple panels would be part of its “DE&I Stage and Showcase,” highlighting retail’s “recommitment to the important work that remains in the areas of diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

I covered that conference, and in an article recapping the show published in January 2022 wrote that DE&I “topped the agenda.”

But that’s unlikely to be anyone’s takeaway for this year’s Big Show, which begins Sunday.

Retail Brew compared this year’s Big Show programming schedule with archived versions from 2022, 2023, and 2024. We discovered that in three years NRF went from using DE&I terminology liberally to using it rarely or not at all:

• The words “inclusive,” “inclusion,” or “inclusivity” appeared 13 times in the 2022 program but only once in 2025.
• The words “equity” or “equitable” appeared four times on both the 2022 and 2023 schedules, but not at all in 2024 or 2025.
• The word “equality” appeared 26 times in the program in 2022 (when some panels were held on an “Equality Lounge” stage) but not once in the 2025 agenda.

When it comes to speakers at the conference, “diversity” appeared in their titles six times in 2022 and five times in 2023 but not once in 2024 or 2025, according to this year’s online list of speakers and archived versions from the three previous years. Similarly, the word “equity” appeared in speakers’ titles twice in 2022 and four times in 2023 (although in one case it was someone in the non-DE&I-related equity financing profession) but not once in 2024 or 2025.

A case for “retail vertical diversity”: In a statement responding to our findings, Stephanie Martz, NRF’s chief administrative officer and general counsel, said in an email that retail “is an industry of diversity, as reflected in its employees, the communities it serves, the goods it sells and the consumers that shop its brands, in stores and online.”

Martz highlighted that Tracee Ellis Ross, actor and founder of Pattern Beauty, was speaking at a keynote session at the conference. (The description of her talk is the only instance of a variant of “inclusive” in this year’s conference, saying that she’d be “highlighting the importance of representation and inclusivity in the beauty industry.”)

Martz also pointed to Sephora US President and CEO Artemis Patrick appearing at the conference, and the program description reveals one topic she’ll address is “how Sephora continues to cultivate a community where beauty enthusiasts of all backgrounds are celebrated.”

She also wrote that Tommy Hilfiger, who “revolutionized global retail through his commitment to inclusivity,” was being presented with NRF’s The Visionary 2025 award during an onstage interview at the conference. In the program, however, neither Hilfiger’s bio nor the description of the session highlight the designer’s actions or attitudes concerning inclusivity or diversity.

Finally, she argued for a more expansive view of diversity. “In addition to gender and racial diversity,” she wrote, “NRF 2025 offers retail vertical diversity (soft goods, hard goods, beauty, grocery, etc.) and age and generational representation in our speakers.”

Money on the table: We shared NRF’s response with Kimberly Lee Minor, CEO of the Women of Color Retail Alliance, and we asked if she thought it was a stretch to characterize Hilfiger as a standard-bearer for inclusivity and whether being from different sectors of the retail industry constitutes diversity.

“Yes, it’s a stretch,” Lee Minor responded in an interview with Retail Brew. She characterized NRF’s statement overall as “a little disappointing” and “kind of status quo.”

But Lee Minor, who while moderating a session at The Lead Summit conference in New York in July criticized Tractor Supply for reversing most of its DE&I efforts following a campaign by conservative activists, said NRF was not alone in deemphasizing DE&I, which companies including Target, Molson Coors, and Lowe’s have done as well.

Diversity has “been weaponized and politicized,” Lee Minor told Retail Brew, but added that companies who reject it do so at their peril.

“Why would you leave money on the table?” she asked. “Why would you not want to support those who shop you? Why would you not want your brand to reflect your customer, unless you no longer want a diverse customer base?”

Lee Minor is attending the conference and stressed that NRF has been a valuable “partner” to the WOC Alliance. Still, she prefers the way NRF championed inclusivity in 2022 over the more subdued approach of this year’s conference.

“There’s opportunity as they think about their influence in the industry to facilitate more conversations about culture and inclusivity that maybe they’ve stepped away from,” she said.