Vice President, Asset Protection & Retail Operations
National Retail Federation
David Johnston is vice president of asset protection and retail operations for the National Retail Federation. In his role, he leads initiatives and member programs focused on asset protection and store operations, facilitating engagement across the industry and promoting best practices and policy initiatives around crime, violence, loss and issues challenging the profitability of retail store operations.
With over three decades of loss prevention and corporate security expertise, Johnston’s experience includes senior roles with global organizations as a practitioner, consultant and solution provider. His experience has afforded him opportunities to engage with many of today’s leading retail, grocery and food service brands across a variety of functions that include asset protection, global security, and digital and ecommerce fraud. He regularly speaks at industry and professional events in support of advocacy and industry issues.
Johnston has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and a master’s degree in security studies from the University of Massachusetts.
Wednesday Jun 10
10:00am - 10:45am
Today’s retail landscape is growing more complex, driving a profound shift in which asset protection professionals face both unprecedented opportunity and escalating challenges. The nature of risk itself is changing — retail domains are converging, and loss is expanding well beyond the singular metric of shrink. In this environment, traditional approaches to asset protection are no longer enough. This session brings a global perspective from two points of view on how organizations should be rethinking and rebuilding for greater efficiency and resiliency. Attendees will gain insight into total retail loss across organizational domains, alongside real-world strategies for executive risk management and enterprise security at scale. A key focus will be how artificial intelligence is reshaping retail risk: from predictive analytics, real‑time threat detection, and proactive intervention, to enhance both profit and business resiliency.
