Past Speakers (2018)

Susanne works with and supports start-ups and early stage digital businesses in the consumer and tech segments and holds various board and advisory posts.  She is Chairman of Made.com, Outfittery Gmbh and Push Doctor Ltd., and holds non-executive board seats with Eurostar International Ltd., Tritax Big Box REIT Plc and Al Tayer, a Middle Eastern luxury group.

During her executive career, she worked across the consumer spectrum, from the luxury retailer Harrods to mainstream department stores John Lewis and House of Fraser, and within the ever-expanding global off-price segment as Managing Director of TK Maxx UK/Ireland.  

Her most recent executive role was as COO for Superdry Plc. She is credited with the turn-around of the Superdry contemporary fashion brand and for re-establishing investor confidence in the public markets, taking the share price from low single digit to high teens over a three-year period.

Dr Itiel Dror holds a PhD in cognitive neuroscience from Harvard University and currently works at University College London (UCL) and Cognitive Consultants International (CCI-HQ). He has published over 120 scientific articles on human perception and decision making, and his expertise is in taking the most theoretical neuro-scientific understanding of the human mind, brain and cognition, and translating it into practical and tangible ways to impact and affect consumer behaviour. He is on the Board of Editors for the journal 'Pragmatics & Cognition' and on the' Journal of Applied Research in Memory & Cognition'. For the successful application of scientific knowledge of the human brain to practical challenges in business he received the Association for Business Psychology (ABP) Annual Chairman's Award.  Itiel Dror's work was judged to be: "Truly outstanding and inspiring", "A highly rigorous application of relevant theoretical frameworks", "Truly innovative, breaking entirely new ground in a most challenging context", "Internationally ground-breaking impact, already being used around the world", "Entirely focused on application of conceptual models, underpinned by deep research", and "Impact is highly impressive".

Jeremy is Chairman of Revital, a multi-channel retailer of supplements, beauty and wellness products, and non-executive advisor to Scotmid Coop. He recently stepped down as CEO of the fashion brand White Stuff where he developed its multi-channel growth in the UK and overseas.

Before that, he was CEO of AS Watson, running Superdrug, Savers and The Perfume Shop, a business he co-founded in the 1990s.

Alice Hastings-Bass is a co-founder of LUX FIX, an e-commerce destination uniting the UK’s best, hard-to-find, independent designers on one easy to shop website. As luxury brands become increasingly the preserve of the super-rich and fast fashion chases the under-30s, LUX FIX provides expertly designed and age/price appropriate fashion for stylish 30+ women who have been neglected by the incumbent fashion players.  Before co-founding LUX FIX, Alice worked in investment banking at Goldman Sachs, and then in private equity.

Julien Callède co-founded the online furniture brand Made.com where he acted mainly as COO and Director of International expansion. Made.com gives customers in now 7 countries in Europe access to great quality & original design furniture items, at an amazing price. After less than 7 years of trading, Made.com reached sales of around £100M in 2016 and is still growing extremely fast, leveraging a fast growing community of hundreds thousands of happy customers across Europe. Julien has now left his executive role in the business, and is focusing his time advising and consulting for start ups and fast growing companies facing scaling challenges.

Bert van Son, originally from the Netherlands, worked in the fashion industry in both Asia and Europe for thirty years before founding MUD Jeans in 2012. The successful businessman quickly realised that there is certainly more to this industry than glamour. It is extremely demanding, especially for the factory workers manufacturing the clothing, but it also makes great demands of nature, and this is where there is a desperate need for change. Together with his team, Bert transformed MUD Jeans into an exemplary company, a poster-child consistently putting the principles of the circular economy into practice. MUD Jeans’ outstanding commitment to this cause has already been recognised in the form of numerous awards including the Sustainability Leadership Award and the Peta Vegan Award. MUD Jeans attains the high standards of various sustainability organisations such as the worldwide B Corp.

Claire Davenport is CEO of Hellofresh UK, the UK's marketing leading recipe box company. 

With an extensive background of successfully scaling businesses and disrupting markets, Claire has held senior positions at RTL Group, Skype, Bigpoint, Future Learn and Voucher Codes prior to joining HelloFresh UK in 2017.

As CEO at Hellofresh UK, Claire is focused on continuously developing a customer centric business that changes the way people eat, forever.

With an extensive background in Online Media, Music and Mergers & Acquisition, Rob Feldmann has been involved in BrandAlley since its inception in 2008.

Rob worked for News Corporation from 1998 in a variety of roles, starting as the CFO of its Global Music Group before moving into a Pan-European role as Mergers & Acquisitions Director providing financial, operational and strategic guidance.

In mid-2009 Rob became CEO of BrandAlley.co.uk and under his leadership the business has achieved its position as the UK’s market leading fashion private sales site. Rob led an MBO of BrandAlley in January 2013 and continues to push the business forward with strong leadership and innovative ways of working, with the focus on being a “mobile first” company.

BrandAlley UK works with top designer and high-street brands including Hugo Boss, Joseph, Reiss, J Brand, Ted Baker, Hobbs, Aspinal of London, Radley, Hackett, Karen Millen, FitFlop and many more.

2018 has seen an exciting period growth at BrandAlley.co.uk, with the business acquiring leading homeware and beauty etailer Achica. Customers now benefit from a full range of leading brands available on both Achica and BrandAlley, with 15 new designer sales launching each day offering up to 80% off homeware, clothing, footwear, accessories and beauty.

BrandAlley – the non-stop designer sale!

George Goley has been Chief Technology Officer for Sainsbury’s Argos since June 2015. George joined Argos from Sears Online, where he was Chief Information Officer responsible for all of Sears’ websites, mobile applications, marketplace seller software and many in-store systems. 

Prior to that George was Vice President of Technology at Amazon.com, responsible for Amazon’s catalogue systems, data warehouse systems, runtime web-facing systems and portions of the search systems. He has also held a variety of Director and Senior Director roles at Microsoft, including stints with SQL Server, MSN.com, Microsoft.com and The Office of the CTO.

 James Gold, co-founding Skinnydip with his brother and best friend in 2011 with an idea of building a fashion, lifestyle and accessory brand, has taken the industry by storm. Turning the ‘phone case’ into a must-have accessory, not only has Skinnydip doubled in size year-on-year but now operates 250 retail locations in over 30 countries - including the American and Asian markets. Gold alongside his co-founders have organically grown the business to a team of over 50 people whilst its loyal social media followers of over 500,000 has transformed Skinnydip London into an internationally recognised and religiously followed brand

Maia Guarnaccia, after graduating in philosophy, has built his career by playing key roles in international companies as Vice President of IMG Fashion Europe, global marketing director at Tod’s, global brand marketing and communications director at Yoox Group.

As Vice President at Vivienne Westwood, one of his priorities is to develop and implement the e-commerce strategy.

Ralph joined the business in July 2014, and became Product Director in March 2015. Since March 2016 Ralph has also been responsible for the Group’s Retail Operations and in November 2017 added Logistics to his remit, becoming Chief Product and Supply Officer. Prior to N Brown, Ralph led teams in buying & merchandising at Marks & Spencer and Shop Direct, before widening his experience in digital and marketing at Sainsbury’s and Kitbag.com.

I joined AH as a Director in 2002 having spent 10 years as a management consultant usually causing chaos implementing SAP. As you’d expect when working for a small organization my roles have been widespread and varied. They have included CIO, CTO, Head of Production and Head of Logistics (often all at the same time). Over the past 4 years I have been able to focus primarily on Technology and on ensuring that the organization is well positioned to take advantage of emerging digital technologies that can be used to improve customer experience and profitability. Having largely completed that work, in 2017 I took on the joint role of COO and CTO.

Highly motivated, multi-dimensional leader, with unrivalled experience of building brands and consumer loyalty for both blue chip companies and internet start ups.

Mirko Caspar studied business administration at the University of Münster, where he went on to gain a PhD. The most important appointments in his career to date were as a corporate consultant at McKinsey, with a focus on marketing and strategy, as senior director for business development at the entertainment conglomerate Universal Music and managing director of its mail order subsidiaries, and as a managing partner of the virtual world company Metaversum. As a managing director of Mister Spex, Caspar is responsible for the Marketing, CRM, Category Management, Public Relations and Product Management divisions and is in charge of international markets.

Melanie, Co-Founder of Smith & Sinclair, a business focused on making magical, innovative edible products for an accessible audience. The company has grown board game dating nights to manufacturing and selling over a million alcoholic cocktail gummies last year. 

John is an experienced IT leader who focuses on where IT can improve business performance and delivering to the ideas. He is also very focused on innovation and has driven a number of new solutions in hospitality and Rail. The highlights are: -

• PizzaExpress App (global first for a solution allowing customers to pay their bill via a mobile App) 

• Delivering growth of Digital tickets from 1% to 20% in one year

• Outlining a vision for on-board customer entertainment systems

• Designing and delivering Automatic Delay Repay which was another rail first

He has worked at a few major retailers including HMV, Disney Store, Gondola Group and now Virgin Trains. His career started in IT many years ago as a computer operator and he has performed a number of roles within IT which have given him a broad understanding of the industry. Over the years he has seen IT change dramatically; not only with hardware / software performance but also how IT now engages with the Business. With the advances in customer facing systems and mobile technology, he believes that IT can now be a true enabler. He is also a believer that there are many options and an incredible number of ways IT can bring value, but selecting the right one which delivers most value is key.

His is a great believer in ‘looking after the staff (as we do at Virgin Trains) and they will look after the customers’. This ethic has a significant influence in the solutions that are implemented for our colleagues, ensuring that the solutions are intuitive and show the relevant information at the right time.

He now has overall responsibility for ‘change’ within Virgin Trains and believes that one of the key aspects for successful project delivery is getting the right innovation process. If you can capture the imagination of your stakeholders using your vision, you are half way to success.

Ms. Stoneham is Senior Vice President, Marketing Chico’s FAS, Inc. is a cultivator of brands serving the lifestyle needs of fashion-savvy women 30 years and older. The brand portfolio currently consists of three brands: Chico’s, White House Black Market and Soma. The Chico’s FAS brands are all specialty retailers of private label women’s apparel, accessories and related products. Currently, operating 1,518 boutiques and outlets throughout the U.S. and Canada, as well as an online presence for each of our brands.

As Senior Vice President Marketing, Ms. Stoneham’s key accountabilities include: brand, consumer and marketing strategy, development of brand identity and essence, customer experience, customer relationship management, loyalty, digital development, leading multi-channel design including store and visual merchandising, advertising, agency management, marketing creation, media planning and investment. Prior to joining Chico’s in 2016, Ms. Stoneham was Senior Vice President, Marketing, Shoppers Drug Mart,licensor of more than 1,300 full-service drug stores across Canada, with $11.1 billion in sales, as well as57medical clinic pharmacies, and six luxury beauty destinations operating as Murale.

Ms. Stoneham is a dynamic and innovative senior marketing leader with tremendous experience and success optimizing shareholder value for top tier organizations. She is highly collaborative, equally skilled atcreating, building, and revitalizing brands as developing, inspiring, coaching and managing strong professional teams. Her experience spans a broad range of sectors including telecommunications, packaged goods, retail, high tech, airline, brand-name and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals. Ms. Stoneham is an award-winning brand thought leader with a relentless drive for innovation and excellence. Ms. Stoneham serves as Director of the Vividata Board (formerly PMB and NadBank), and Director of Women's College Hospital Foundation.

Lucy is the Head of Online Trade for John Lewis with responsibility for their Electricals and Home assortments on the UK site and also their International websites. She has worked in the John Lewis Partnership for 15 years with a variety of Senior Leadership roles across John Lewis Department Stores across the UK. Lucy joined the Online team two years ago and has a truly omni-channel view of the Customer that allows her to lead a team that delivers a market leading Customer focused website.

Marketing Director, Francesca Sieler, has worked at luxury British accessories company Lulu Guinness since August 2012, where she has galvanised the marketing strategy and become an ambassador for the brand thanks to her close relationship with Lulu.

As well as creating synergistic partnerships, enhancing digital content and brand communications, she has also introduced cultural events to stimulate the brand’s consumer engagement.

After studying Fashion Communication and Marketing at Leeds University she started her career at All Saints as a Marketing Executive, where her fashion and branding prowess saw her quickly rise within the ranks of the company. She became Head of PR and Marketing within five years and her legacy includes generating effective guerrilla marketing activity and boosting brand awareness and promotion.  

Amit Goyal has been with Overstock for more than a decade, starting out his career as a senior software developer in 2006. He worked his way up to software development lead, director and then vice president before assuming his current role as senior vice president.

As a software developer, Goyal worked on building out fulfillment systems before moving on to director where he managed software technology for OLabs, Overstock’s emerging business incubator. After his transition to vice president of development, Goyal was responsible for managing product technology for website and mobile.

In his current positon as senior vice president of software engineering, Goyal oversees a team of more than 300 engineers leading the department in software engineering and architecture. Under his direction, Goyal’s teams have been behind the creation and implementation of technology including augmented reality, virtual reality and machine learning.

Simon Pakenham-Walsh is Director of Technology for Sainsbury’s, responsible for the technology change and delivery across all aspects of Sainsbury’s food business from digital to retail experiences. This includes the full value chain from customer purchase through to logistics. Prior to Sainsbury’s, Simon has worked across several commercial and public sector industries including Sky, Royal Mail Group, National Rail and HMRC.

Nigel is Head of Operations Development for Sainsbury’s Argos where he leads Proposition, Operating Model and Format Development, together with Operational Product Management.

During his four years with the organisation Nigel has been at the forefront of the large change initiatives overhauling Argos’ Customer fulfilment capability, through its Hub & Spoke and FastTrack Delivery & Collection initiatives, and latterly leading the development and delivery of the Store in Store and Collection Point programmes across the Sainsbury’s Argos business.

Before joining Sainsbury’s Argos, Nigel was Head of International Business Development for Tesco where he looked after the expansion of Tesco’s multi-channel capability across its international markets.

Melissa is Head of Digital Product Development for the omni-channel digital customer experiences for Sainsbury’s Argos. Previously, Melissa has been VP of engineering for product management and search for Sears Online and a Technical Product Architect for Microsoft. Melissa sits on the Sainsbury’s Argos Women in Technology panel and was a finalist for Woman of the Year at the Women in IT awards.

Corin Mills' experience has centred around the marketing, strategy, architecture and visual identity of brands. From tactical hands-on delivery, through to global brand-led business transformations.

He has worked for leading brand agencies and large multi-national brands and is currently Head of Brand at Dixons Carphone, overseeing their range of brands including Currys PC World and Carphone Warehouse. Before this, he was overseeing implementation at Wolff Olins following a wide range of experiences including brand management for the launches of EE and Virgin Media, as well as store design for Tesco, Waitrose, Orange and T-Mobile.

Dave has worked at Dune for 9 years and in his current role for the last 5 years. His main responsibilities are around the instore Omni-Channel Journey encompassing, Endless aisle deliveries, Click & Collect, One stock pool visibility, instore analytics, Company intranet & digital scheduling. 

He started his career at Dune as an assistant manager in Oxford Circus then worked across 6 different central London locations, prior to his current role he was an area support manager.

Before working for Dune he also worked for Nike, Office Shoes, River Island & Sports Direct across the East Midlands, York & London. He studied at the University of York achieving a BSc in Management, IT & Language. 

Antony Comyns is the Head of E-commerce at Hawes & Curtis – a leading heritage menswear and womenswear brand. In 2007, Antony took the position to run the Hawes & Curtis E-commerce business in its second year of trading. Since then, he has taken it from a small localised business to a successful international E-commerce site with four websites, serving more than 120 countries.

Originally from New Zealand, Antony’s first job in the UK was at Liberty of London where he was in charge of mail order and subsequently Muji, where he spent five years. Following that, Antony worked for Jake, a women’s fashion mail order business, where he used his experience from Liberty.

Antony’s expertise in mail order took him to GUS where he worked for McCord’s (furniture and homeware) and Innovations (gadgets and innovated products).

Simon is the Head of eCommerce Technology Services at House of Fraser, and has been implementing and optimising eCommerce IT Service for 12 years. Prior to joining House of Fraser, he set up/delivered service for big brands and retailers including Ted Baker, Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, Selfridges, Waitrose, Argos, Audi and Sainsbury's, providing industry-leading levels of customer satisfaction.

Patrick Osborne has worked with customer data analytics for 25 years in a variety of industries and sectors, beginning in direct mail fulfilment and events organisation.  He worked on the implementation of Nectar, the first multi-retailer loyalty programme in the UK, and has also spent time in the university sector, financial services and as a management consultant advising firms on the expert use of their customer data. He now works for QVC, one of the world’s largest direct selling retailers as the Head of Customer Insights & Analysis.

Mark is Head of Customer Marketing at QVC, one of the UK’s leading omnichannel retailers.

He began his career working in the magazine publishing industry before moving to QVC four years ago where he oversees acquisition and retention activity to keep growing the brand’s one million (and counting) customers.

Ed Whatmore is the Head of Ecommerce for Mountain Warehouse. Having joined the company in 2012, he has overseen the rapid growth of the online business in the UK alongside digital expansion into North America, Europe and beyond. He is responsible for the full online marketing mix and Ecommerce function with a keen interest in data driven strategy, user experience and CRM.

Brad has over 20 years of Retail experience both as a customer and a provider of ERP systems and system integrations. Brad has been involved in many Omni channel businesses, thus proving to be an invaluable member of any ERP installation.

Steve has spent over a decade in grocery eCommerce and digital working both retailer and supplier side for Tesco.com/Dunnhumby, Burtons Biscuits, JDE and Arla Foods. Having spent his entire career working in the digital and ecomm space, he has a vast amount of experience in developing online specific trade and digital marketing strategies that drive digital engagement and sales through the online channel.

Ben Greener is the Digital Content Manager at Andertons Music Co. a family run and owned music instrument retailer for over 50 years.

Over the last few years Ben has worked with a team of content professionals and ecommerce specialists to build strong customer relationships through great experience and digital media.

Andertons Music Co. is an industry leading company that has won numerous industry awards for our customer service and digital media.

Rob is a passionate Ecommerce and Digital Marketing campaigner for an simpler, easier and better future.  He has been involved in Ecommerce since “the start” , has a career including launching The Fragrance Shop online and is now responsible for Ecommerce at Hotter shoes.  Brings together technology as solutions to customer experience and human endeavour to build experiences that help users to be great customers. 

Will is Head of Mobile at TUI, the world’s leading tourism group. His goal is to use mobile to engage and inspire TUI’s 20m customers, ensuring a seamless experience throughout the customer journey. In particular, Will is responsible for executing TUI’s strategy to establish mobile apps as a primary sales channel across 11 European markets.

Passionate about how digital can be used to enhance the customer experience and deliver commercial value, Will has helped TUI to overcome some of the many challenges faced by traditional retailers that are struggling to adapt to a fast paced, digitally centric environment.

Sumeet is an insightful and accomplished eCommerce & digital professional who has 7+ years proven success in identifying, nurturing and delivering online initiatives establishing a pathway to a more significant ROI. 

Having worked in luxury sector launching and trading multiple eCommerce sites across the Magento and bespoke platforms, he has developed a robust digital insight and passion for eCommerce. Results motivate him, and he is driven by an appetite to succeed. 

Head of Damart USA since 2014, a  Customer insight & Data Driven Marketing expert  for two decades,  Jonny has learnt (the hard way!) where to find the levers for sustainable profit . Passionate about UX,  and leveraging skills and insight from around and outside the organization, his current challenge is how best to develop a business from 3,000 miles away !

As Head of Ecommerce at Lulu Guinness, Tayyaba has taken on the rewarding challenge of re-aligning internal processes, establishing stronger links with acquisition and retention partners, developing new ways of working whilst striving to set ourselves apart from our competitors through innovation. A commercially minded senior digital and multi-channel retailer, experienced in International expansion, localisation and customer engagement, with over 10 years’ experience in Ecommerce and branding.

Danielle has worked across the 150 year old Co-op Group for over 15 years, across a multitude of sectors ranging from Food to Funerals. Danielle has predominantly operated in strategy, architecture and new ventures. Danielle has played key roles on programmes as diverse as Co-op Online Grocery Shopping in 2001, first relaunch of Membership in 2006 and its current incarnation launched in 2016, to the first Food mobile app in 2012. Danielle is currently Head of Practice for Architecture & Analysis in Co-op Digital. Danielle the chapter lead for Ladies Of Code Manchester and is a champion of diversity in technology within and outside of the Co-op as Non-Exec Director of Innovate Her. Danielle is also Board Director of the Co-op Credit Union and a Member of National Members Council.

I have a 30 year career in retail and wholesale working across fashion, beauty, art, interiors and publishing. I have been the Retail director at Molton Brown for the last year running the retail and wholesale channels for the UK & Ireland. Prior to this I was Tom Dixon’s Commercial Director and before that I ran an art publishing business for Damien Hirst.

Sumo is the Director of Product Innovation and Growth Brands. He is responsible for discovering new technologies and building new customer experiences and brands to drive growth at 1800Flowers. He is the GM of the international business unit and Personalization Universe customized gifts brand and is currently leading the launch of the new international delivery brand, 0800Flowers. Sumo chairs the Mobile Roundtable which is an industry consortium of 35 of the Internet Retailer 100 mobile product and marketing leaders.

Following a successful modelling career, Josie Cartridge studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology before working as Marketing Manager for UK brand Sainsbury’s, developing and managing the launch of their first own label clothing brand Tu.

Josie joined River Island in 2010 as Marketing Director. In this role Josie helped oversee the launch of the first TV campaign in 2014, and delivered the Rihanna for River Island collaboration and campaign. During her career as Marketing Director, Josie has also helped steer the creation of the plus-size offering, RI Plus, catering for sizes 18-24.

In January 2016, Josie was promoted to Customer Director, as part of a wider business strategy to increase engagement with customers across all product divisions and touchpoints.

Paula is the Director of Digital Customer Experience and Operations at Debenhams and is responsible for the strategy, roadmap and delivery of customer experience across channels and the day to day running of the digital operation. She has a passion for retail and E-commerce from a career spanning Marks and Spencer, WH Smith, Sainsburys and Homebase. Her first foray into e-commerce was back in 1999 where she led the launch of Homebase.co.uk which was one of the first e-commerce sites in the UK.

A tenured digital executive, Angus Cormie has managed the Consumer and Small Business eCommerce channels for Dell in Europe for more than 10 years. His responsibilities have included digital marketing, Customer Experience management, and helping to drive the development new online journey’s and functionality, with previous experience including executive leadership for O2 Online from 2000 to 2005, Managing Director of an online gift retailer, and a short period as a digital media consultant in 2006 and 2007.

Rachel Humphrey is the PR & Strategic Partnerships Director at Birchbox UK, a beauty retailer best known for its monthly subscription of personalised products. Rachel has been with Birchbox UK since 2013, the year Birchbox launched into the UK market. Leading strategic partnerships with brands such as Vogue, Nike, Boden, Matthew Williamson, Stylist and many more; Rachel’s direction and vision has played an integral part in the growth of the UK business. 

As PR & Strategic Partnerships Director of Birchbox UK, Rachel is responsible for building and leading the Birchbox brand identity. She leads the PR & Partnerships division while also managing campaigns that generate social engagement, content, press coverage and organic consumer traction - with a major focus on shareability and subscriber engagement.

Prior to Birchbox, Rachel worked in-house and agency side across consumer PR; launching, implementing and developing brand profile strategy for many leading UK brands, mainly within the beauty sector. Rachel has a BA (Hons) in Dance and Theatre Performance from Bird College (Affiliated by The University of Greenwich). She is originally from Lancashire and now lives in London with her husband and daughter.

Gareth is currently Multichannel Director at Miss Selfridge responsible for all customer facing activity included in his remit are stores, digital, creative and marketing. He has been at Arcadia Group for 5 years, previously as Global Digital Director at Topman. Before that Gareth worked for Marks & Spencer, initially as store manager culminating in running their flagship London Stores then in Digital responsible for all aspects of the Trading of M&S.com, the launch of their international sites and the growth and integration of their Multichannel technology strategy. 

Sergio Romero is Director of Marketing & Performance Analytics at Vistaprint, a Cimpress company, where he leads the team responsible for optimizing online and offline channel activity, and improving the efficiency of the company’s marketing budget of hundreds of millions of dollars.

He brought to Vistaprint 15+ years of experience in the Consulting and Financial Services industries where he developed top notch strategies in order to increase customer loyalty, grow product distribution through non-traditional channels and enhance return on marketing investment. He started his career with The Boston Consulting Group, and prior to Vistaprint Sergio held different positions in customer analytics and business strategy with CaixaBank, the leading retail bank in Spain with more than 14M customers.

Sergio holds degrees in Engineering and Statistics from UPC, and an MBA from ESADE Business School.

Kerem Atasoy is the Commercial Director at Farfetch Black & White, the innovation arm of Farfetch building digital solutions for luxury brands.   He leads a team across London, New York and Porto covering business development, client services, project management and performance marketing. 

Prior to this  Kerem was Head of Digital Marketing at Harvey Nichols where he was responsible for Social Media, CRM, Digital Customer Acquisition and Loyalty.  He led the conception, development and launch of Rewards by Harvey Nichols and the launch campaign in partnership with Adam & Eve DDB "Shoplifters" which won a Grand Prix at Cannes Lions.  Before joining Harvey Nichols Kerem worked for Google for 8 years, most recently heading up YouTube sales for Turkey and the Middle East. Kerem also worked for Google in London where he set up and led their luxury practice running relationships with brands including NET-A-PORTER, Burberry, Farfetch and Rolex.  

Simon joined the Bonmarche team as Trading Director (Ecommerce, Merchandising, Marketing, Supply Chain & Logistics) in April 2017. Prior to this role, he was a Commercial/Buying & Merchandising Consultant at the Future Today Retail Consultancy. He has also held roles at The Conran Shop, Republic, and BHS Limited / Arcadia.

Lara joined Auto Trader in 2015, and is responsible for the structure and strategy of the business’ commercial advertising platforms and operations. Originally joining to lead the programmatic and audiences team, her role has grown to jointly manage a talented team covering programmatic, data & audiences, analytics & insights, and ad technology functions.

Lara and her team launched Auto Trader’s first data management platform, built an in-house media buying team and developed a commercial strategy for the company’s first-party automotive intent data. In 2017, Lara was named to the ‘50 Women in Ad Tech’ list.

Prior to joining Auto Trader, Lara spent seven years at the Telegraph - first working on digital strategy and analytics, before moving into advertising in 2011 where she the built the Telegraph’s programmatic business. 

Lara previously worked for Disney, AOL, a Silicon Valley mobile start-up, and as an equity investment analyst. Lara holds an MBA from London Business School, a Masters in Social Psychology from London School of Economics, and an Economics degree from Harvard University.

Anouk is a seasoned Marketing & Sales Strategist who has worked with and for the worlds’ largest (and smallest) brands over the past decade. Having worn a variety of career-hats, she’s seen the industry develop from a cross-channel and cross-border point of view and is currently heading up the eCommerce and Marketing team for the National Lighting group. Seeing their brands through a digital transformation over 2017, she knows what media tools truly drive conversions. Anouk holds a Master Degree in Global Marketing, is a frequent speaker and contributor to industry events and publications around the world, a massive fan of puns, and she lives by the quote ‘‘In life you always meet twice – by Anouk’s dad’’.

Joe Tinston is Director of Customer Retention at Bloom & Wild, the UK’s most loved online florist offering a range of flowers and gifts through the letterbox.  Joe works across physical product, digital product, marketing and customer experience to drive loyalty.

Prior to that, Joe was Director of Ecommerce and Digital Marketing at onefinestay (acquired by Accor Hotels) and has previously worked for Tesco and eBay. 

Jim started his marketing career at agencies doing PPC and SEO at agencies. He previously lead customer acquisition during fast growth periods at notonthehighstreet.com and ACHICA before joining Bloom & Wild as Marketing Director. Bloom & Wild aim to make the giving and receiving of flowers the joy it should be, operating in the UK and Ireland and more recently in Germany and France. 

Alex Murray is Digital Director at Lidl, previously holding a number of ecommerce and multichannel roles at Waitrose, GAME and Berry Bros. & Rudd. He has 18 years digital experience, leading diverse teams through periods of rapid growth and transformation and is passionate about creating memorable digital experiences that drive customer advocacy and repeat business.

Tony Long is a Marketing Technology innovator with over 20 years of global leadership of initiatives that combine marketing, technology and commerce. His diversified background includes founding one of the first “Silicon Alley” web development shops in the mid 1990’s, consulting on digital marketing projects across numerous industries, serving as senior leadership with tech and non-tech start-ups, and heading marketing initiatives for clients across the US and Europe that included major retail, banking, consumer products and sporting franchises. 

In his current role at Kimberly-Clark Tony supports top-tier markets and leading retailers globally with e-commerce and digital marketing strategies and capabilities. He is a frequent keynote speaker at marketing and e-commerce conferences around the world, and writes a column on the subjects for Ecommerce Brasil magazine. He also plays bass, percussion and keyboards for Chicago-based rock band Samson The Aviator.

A Board level retail leader with deep digital experience. Robin has a successful track record of delivering Omnichannel transformation, whilst driving growth and profits in the most challenging and competitive of retail markets. His passion is in devising winning Brand and Customer strategies, building and implementing the Solutions needed across Digital, Retail, Product, Marketing, IT and HR, aligning the whole organisation to deliver the Omnichannel P&L. Robin has a unique track record of delivery in this space at his previous roles at John Lewis, Waitrose, Boots and Kurt Geiger

With over 17 years of experience split between FMCG and media, Arti currently leads connectivity transformation projects at Nestle (Professional). Arti’s passion lies in bringing together business, people and technology to create outstanding experiences for customers.  After hours, she mentors women start-up founders.

Lulu has over 12 years experiences in marketing, digital marketing, and international business development. She's currently a senior digital marketing manager at Laura Ashley. She's passionate about all things digital and an expert in all digital marketing channels. 

Annabel Sparrow is CRM manager for Wallis and Evans, part of the Arcadia Group.

Annabel manages the CRM strategy for both brands, including but not limited to; personalisation, segmentation, 

loyalty and lead generation. CRM for both brands makes up our largest driven marketing channel.

Chris Purnell looks after customer insight and digital analytics for Wallis and Evans, part of the Arcadia Group.

His remit includes customer segmentation and optimisation of marketing and digital products.

Sam Chambers covers the U.K. retail industry for Bloomberg News in London.

Alys Key is a business reporter at City A.M. covering retail and leisure.

Amit Sharma is the founder and CEO of Narvar, an enterprise-grade customer experience platform serving 400+ retailers like Sephora, Patagonia, Home Depot, Gap, and Bose. Narvar helps retailers inspire loyalty beyond reason by enabling seamless post-purchase experiences that retain, engage, and delight customers — from cart to doorstep, and beyond. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Amit has decades of experience across supply chain, information technology and business analytics at companies including Apple, Walmart, and Williams-Sonoma. Amit received his BS in electronics engineering and MBA from Duke University. 

Karen Pepper is the General Manager, UK for Amazon Pay. She is responsible for leading Amazon’s payment services for 3rd party merchants in the UK including Amazon Pay and the associated value added services.

Karen is a 15-year veteran of the payments and start up industries. Most recently she was Global Head of Alliance Banks at JP Morgan where she managed relationship with 22 banks across 41 markets. Karen has also held executive positions at American Express and her own multi-million pound start up in the health and fitness sector.

Karen sits on the board of Hatch, a UK incubator for social enterprises and on the board of Tamar, an anti-human trafficking charity.

Karen holds a MBA from the London Business School.

Laurel is responsible for UK marketing at high-growth fintech Klarna. Prior to joining Klarna, she spent many years at leading payments technology vendor Verifone (NYSE: PAY), looking after their European marketing activity. Laurel has 15+ years international marketing leadership experience across tech and financial services - producing award-winning campaigns, achieving commercial targets and winning new business along the way. Laurel is a proud alumna of the University of Texas and their prestigious creative advertising programme.

Boaz leads Optimove's business development in Europe. He has over 20 years of experience introducing and implementing cutting-edge technologies in enterprises. Boaz Holds an MSc in Change Management from Birkbeck, University of London.

Dr. Douglas Hollinger joined LiveArea in 2015. As SVP of Strategy & Consulting, he has global responsibilities for client services as well as the company's consulting and strategy offerings. With more than 12 years of executive experience and more than 17 years working in digital-focused consulting, Douglas specialises in helping B2B and B2C companies achieve measurable success by identifying and capitalising on emerging digital opportunities.

Michael has worked in digital technology for over 13 years and is now Managing Director of BloomReach UK.  BloomReach is a unique, next generation Personalised Discovery platform which enables large retailers to react to web wide demand and to ensure customers discover what products they are searching for both offline and online.  Prior to working at BloomReach, Michael ran teams at Webtrends where he focused upon solutions in Web Analytics, Multi-Variate testing and site optimisation.  Michael has many years worth of experience in the retail tech sector and has worked with many leading brands in luxury, fashion, electronic and department stores.  

Florian Pauthner is CEO of SevenVentures. Before joining ProSiebenSat.1 Group in January 2014, Florian Pauthner worked as an M&A consultant for SEB, one of Northern Europe’s largest financial institutions, and the management consulting division of KPMG.

Talia Shani is the Director of Marketing for Yotpo UK. A native New Yorker, she is a new transplant to London (which she likes way better than Manhattan). Having worked in the eCommerce industry for the last 4 years, she's an expert in user-generated content strategy with a specialty in emerging, vertical commerce brands. 

Solutions engineering technical lead at Cloudinary, a media management platform for web and mobile developers which powers e-commerce solutions of leading retailers worldwide. Hadar has more than 10 years of experience in software development and solution engineering. Has been working extensively with developers and product managers around the globe on optimising e-commerce customer experience using high performance media.

Ohad brings a wealth of retail, eCommerce and B2B marketing experience to Namogoo, where he leads marketing, communications and digital strategy. Previously, Ohad was VP Marketing at Feedvisor, and helped launch two lifestyle brands as Director of Ecommerce and Digital Marketing for Sears Holdings. Ohad holds an MBA from The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.

For the past decade, Joe has worked with some of the largest retailers in the world on developing their customer experience and consumer-generated content strategies. In his current role Joe leads strategy, revenue growth and overall operations for Bazaarvoice across EMEA. Before undertaking this role, Joe was SVP Client Success at Bazaarvoice, leading the global account management function to support the most innovative retailers globally. He initially joined the company in 2010 to grow Bazaarvoice’s first CPG Brands offering and practice. Prior to Bazaarvoice, Joe led account management at a Procter & Gamble-owned marketing consultancy. He has also consulted on digital marketing strategies with brands ranging from Pampers, to Sprint, to Newell Rubbermaid.

Stefan is an engaging speaker who translates his team’s market research into a series of actionable items that benefit retailers as a whole. He’s an expert on ecommerce operations and customer experience. He’s presented on buy-online-pick-up-in-store, the digital transformation of retail and has presented at ecommerce events, such as eTail West as well as at marketing conferences such as the SiriusDecisions Summit and Marketo Summit. He constantly challenges the status quo and leaves audiences questioning their long-held assumptions and business practices. 

Parry has worked with countless brands and media outlets to help them optimise their online results, and is one of the world’s leading experts on email marketing (which he blogs about here sometimes.) He started his career coding middleware for CRM software, then sent out millions of emails for global brands, before running the strategy department for an ESP.  He holds a BBA (1st) in Marketing & Statistics and can probably beat you in an Excel-off. On weekends, he helps wayward youths see the error of their ways through the magic of interpretive dance.

Andy Berry is Vice President EMEA, Software and Retail at Pitney Bowes. He is an accomplished global technology executive who brings over 20 years of international strategic experience of the retail, supply chain, distribution and fulfillment businesses.

Prior to joining Pitney Bowes, Andy Spent 4 ½ years as the General Manager of Wholesale Distribution at Infor Global Solutions. This business supported over 6,000 retail and wholesale distribution customers, 8 ERP systems, and 26 channel partners in Europe and the Americas. 

Andy holds a degree in Computer Science from the East Carolina University. Andy is married to his wife of 21 years Michelle, has 3 children, and lives in London UK.

Lewis currently leads the UK sales team at Bazaarvoice, this follows a career within enterprise bluechips IBM, Microsoft and Salesforce.  Bazaarvoice is the leading global firm helping brands and retailers collect and share customer-generated content, to drive traffic, sales and insight. At Bazaarvoice Lewis has led commercial relationships with key retailers including Tesco, Argos, Kingfisher Group and brands including Unilever, Disney and Kimberly Clark. Bazaarvoice has recently extended their offering beyond the core consumer generated content market, and into personalisation and advertising offerings.

Outside of work, Lewis wishes he was an astronaut.

Tal Ofer is UK Country Manager for Keros Digital, a leader eCommerce technology company providing modular and customised end-to-end omnichannel suite designed to boost sales for retailers and brands domestically and internationally. He has over 10 years of eCommerce experience having worked in leading global companies like Rakuten, Criteo and Pitney Bowes Global eCommerce, where he had the chance to work with some of the biggest fashion, sports and health&beauty retailers and brands in the UK.

A regular external speaker and board member of the CBI Top 35 under 35 committee, Alex focuses on how the three aspects of Marketing, Commerce and Supply Chain can help deliver a seamless customer centric experience in a world where organizations grapple with the challenges of digital reinvention. Prior to his current role Alex led IBM’s recent $2bn+ acquisition of The Weather Company across EMEA where Mobile Technology, Consumer advertising and Digital Marketing Technology formed IBM’s re-entry into the Business to Consumer space. 

When not working, Alex can be found cycling or playing rugby. He lives in London with his partner and daughter.

Drew is the Vice President of Product Management at Mobify and is responsible for product strategy, roadmap, and technology partnerships. He’s an ecommerce veteran, having led and advised enterprise ecommerce projects around the globe for brands like Symantec, Time Inc, and Debenhams. Drew is passionate about the Web as a platform, API architectures. and data-driven insights.

Robin is the CEO and co-founder of Loop54 and has, since 2012, been building a company that tackles challenges like Neural Networking, Topic Modelling, Natural Language Processing and Social Network analysis to make lives easier for E-commerce retailers and a better search and navigation experience for consumers. Without Robin, Loop54 may have remained a well-kept secret, available to a few lucky Swedish retailers, but thanks to him the company grew into an e-commerce game changer, trusted by nearly 200 retailers across Europe, Australia and the US and now serving clients in the UK as well. As CEO of Loop54, he is deeply involved in the future of Machine Learning and predictive analytics.

Martijn has over 10 years of experience in Digital Experience Optimization. With his experience as class-room trainer and business consulting background he often speaks at various events on how to use data and technology in order to become an insights driven business.

Currently, he and his team advise companies on a strategic level on how to transform business requirements into the best possible experience using the Optimizely Experimentation Platform.

Gil is the CEO and co-founder of Splitit. He holds over 20 years of experience in sales and management for US corporations, previously serving as the Regional Manager for one of Dell EMC’s product divisions where he was responsible for driving sales, building customer relationships, and establishing additional channel partners. Prior to this, he served as Vice President of Sales for leading technology system integrators Ankor and We!.

Andrew Bartlam is VP & GM for EMEA at Instart Logic. He has been deeply involved in the Digital Space for 20+ years having occupied Senior Management, Sales and Strategic Alliances roles at organizations including Jive Software, Adobe Systems, Omniture, Vignette, Remedy Corporation and the Industry Analyst, Gartner. Andrew is a frequent speaker at Industry events and in his spare time he is an advisor to several high-tech startups. Andrew graduated from the University of Portsmouth with a Degree in Political Economics & International Relations.

Through marketing, commerce and order management solutions, for the last 11 years David has helped clients capture the opportunities and overcome the challenges offered by digital reinvention. His experience spans variety of industry sectors including Retail, Consumer Products, Distribution, Telco, Manufacturing and Financial Services in the Europe and South East Asia.

Having joined IBM from Sterling Commerce, David has led Watson Commerce sales for Europe since 2011. Watson Commerce gives commerce professionals the power to create seamless experiences that customers want and value, monitor trends and behaviours, and understand market changes as they occur and optimize actions in real time. 

Michal Novovesky is the Chief Customer Success Officer at Exponea, an e-commerce cloud company that gives B2C marketers a robust tool to speed up optimization and omni-channel communication. Michal has extensive experience with data-driven business development. In his current role, he has successfully led over 60 projects and solution implementations for e-commerce leaders in Europe and the UK. These involved large businesses and SMBs, including fashion houses present in 20+ countries, global telco companies and hyper-fast growing travel sites. He is passionate about helping business leaders, CRM and marketing managers tap into the full potential of their data.

Industry veteran and serial entrepreneur, Mike is Managing Director for Agillic. 

Mike was instrumental in the introduction of Marketing Automation to the UK and Europe when, in 2005, Silverpop acquired Digital Oxygen, the agency he had founded two years earlier. He spent the next few years growing Silverpop to an early market leadership position.

In 2012, as the industry settled into a cosy world of “following best practice”, Mike created a pioneering data science consultancy at Profusion to overcome some of the obstacles present in the marketing technology landscape. He proved again that better understanding your customers is the key to more powerful marketing conversations – and significantly higher return on marketing investment.

Mike believes that “…what was brilliant yesterday won’t be good enough for tomorrow.” Exciting as it is to amaze people with something innovative, unless you continue to create excellence, that initial amazement will quickly fade. That initial amazement should be the foundation for an ongoing commitment to continuous improvement and innovation.

Mike appears regularly in news media (BBC, FT, Sky News) and speaking at conferences, globally.

Tim Bryan is the Chief Revenue Officer at Custora. He has spent the last three years helping Custora establish itself as the leading customer analytics platform for retailers. Prior to working for Custora, he was the Chief Revenue Officer at Moveable Ink. He has also worked in media sales and advertising for Time, Inc., A&E, and The New York Times. Tim has a Bachelors of Art in English from Syracuse University.  Tim lives in New York City with his wife and daughter. 

Ben Christensen is a Senior Digital Consultant for Cheetah Digital. He has been working in the marketing technology industry for over eight years in both the UK and Australia. Ben specialises in understanding businesses objectives, and helps them to demystify and simplify the ever-increasing complexity of marketing in today’s world. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Lancaster University. 

Katy is UK Director at Tinyclues and has worked in digital for 15 years, riding a wave of tech evolution to improve multichannel campaign experiences. 
Tinyclues enables retailers to run intelligent marketing campaigns that are both customer-centric and aligned with business goals. It uses Deep Machine Learning to offer a new and unique AI-first platform experience where marketers directly input their campaign ideas and goals and, within minutes, build the best action plan and campaign targets. Retailers such as Arcadia, Boden, Charles Tyrwhitt, Lacoste, Brand Alley and more have all achieved rapid, proven results from Tinyclues AI. 
Katy has worked with some awesome marketers across many leading brands to develop customer engagement strategies. She's now excited to bridge the AI zeitgeist with proven business value.

Meyar Sheik co-founded Certona in 2004 and serves as the Chief Executive Officer. Under his guidance, the company has grown into the top omnichannel personalization provider for today’s largest brands and retailers around the world.  For the past ten years, Meyar has been focusing on applying Certona’s innovative consumer profiling, behavioral targeting and real-time personalization to generate higher conversions and more revenues on popular e-commerce sites. Meyar is a frequent industry speaker on cross-channel personalization trends and solutions.

Prior to Certona and from early 2000, Meyar was CMO and COO of WebSideStory, Inc., a leading web analytics provider (now part of Adobe). Meyar has a BS in Electrical Engineering from New York Institute of Technology and an MBA from Rochester Institute of Technology.

Raj Balasundaram is a digital marketing evangelist and Artificial Intelligence Marketing (AIM) advocate. He runs the global solutions and innovation teams for Emarsys, and is responsible for working with customers to translate their brand strategies into consolidated digital approaches. As a trusted advisor for leading marketers, he has successfully helped companies around the work to leverage their digital platforms and data to differentiate themselves from competitors and achieve superior financial results.

As keen storyteller and enthusiastic engineer, Raj enjoys the process simplifying complex digital marketing challenges into common sense frameworks and focusing on customer-centric marketing techniques. Raj has delivered presentations and talks at a variety of global conferences and road shows, evangelizing the art of data intelligence based marketing. He is also passionate about mentoring and teaching; he works with young aspiring marketing graduates from UK institutions, giving them inspiring insights into the complex world of marketing practices

Previously, Raj held leadership pre-sales positions at Oracle, Salesforce and other leading companies. He is a keen cricketer and lives in the UK.

Dan looks after Business Development in EMEA for Braintree. He has over 10 years of experience in eCommerce and payments, having served as a trusted client advisor at Amazon, PayPal, Klarna and now Braintree. As well as looking for new ways to deliver value to Enterprise customers, he founded and runs a multichannel retail business in his spare time.

Lori Hawthorne has ten years experience as a corporate event director and now works as a Divisional Director, spearheading the eTail portfolio of conferences. She creates targeted networking and educational conferences that foster innovation, address unique business challenges and advance careers. Her core focus is the successful production and execution of some of Worldwide Business Research’s highest grossing portfolio of events that service Fortune 1000 companies, specifically in the retail, finance, B2B and ecommerce space. Her responsibilities include event strategy development and execution, launch event creation,  forecasting and budget management, content creation, sponsorship and marketing campaign development. When she’s not supporting her team of conference producers, you can probably find her in her kitchen, baking for her family.

Ellen Granoff is an Associate Producer at Worldwide Business Research where she works on eTail Europe along with other events in the eTail portfolio. After graduating with honors from the George Washington University in Washington, D.C., Ellen moved to New York City to pursue a career in corporate events. When she isn't in the office, you can find Ellen runnning outside on the East River running path or at one of New York's many fine pizza establishments.