Meet the 2025 Speakers

Nick King, as the Insight Director at Auto Trader, analyses and interprets the trends in consumer adoption of technology and what this means for manufacturers and retailers. By doing so, can demonstrate strategies for customer acquisition and retention through digital and traditional offline channels. He has a particular focus on best practice in digital retailing today; how to stand out in digital marketplace – what are successful retailers doing today to win and; what will be the must have technologies – AI, VR, augmented reality.

Scott Taylor is Executive Director of Marketing for American Golf – the largest golf retailer in Europe. Passionate about digital marketing, he has been on the board of American Golf since 2021 – driving their success as an omnichannel business. He has more than 18 years of experience in marketing and customer relationship management with some of the UK’s largest retailers. With top-level experience in digital marketing, customer loyalty, data insight and creative brand management, Scott has worked with many major brands including Selfridges, Ted Baker, Arcadia and Uniqlo. An LGBTQ+ advocate, Scott is also the host of The Rainbow Roundtable which features guests to celebrate and discuss all things LGBTQ+ within retail.

Paul Hornby has nearly 20 years of experience across eCommerce, Digital, Product and Technology, during which time he has been responsible for many areas including digital strategy, performance marketing, product management, UX, engineering, insight and analytics. He has worked at both large and medium-sized online businesses (The Very Group and Matalan), whilst also supporting start-ups via his work with Baltic Ventures. He is passionate about building high-performing teams, has been an Ambassador of the MACH Alliance for the past 3 years, and sat on Liverpool City Region’s Digital & Creative Board for over 6 years.

Olaf Akkerman is a member of Microsoft’s UK Senior Leadership Team and leads the Retail & Consumer Goods Industries. A seasoned leader in the UK tech industry for more than 20 years, he drives a customer first approach and focusses on building inclusive and high performing cultures. Olaf and his team work closely with a diverse set of customers across the sector to enable them to create better and more sustainable outcomes for consumers worldwide. He has held various senior sales positions at Microsoft, including leading the Media & Telco, and Professional Services industry teams. Prior to this, Olaf was the VP of Sales EMEA for Rackspace where he led several companywide transformation projects, expanded into new markets across Europe, and launched new service offerings that drove significant customer and business impact.

Giles Smith is the former Head of Technology for Selfridges, responsible for the technology strategy and delivery of their Digital, physical retail and omnichannel technology. Prior to that he was the Digital Director for Burberry and has also delivered technology innovation and transformation at John Lewis, Arcadia, Matalan, Unilever, Diageo and more. He is a MACH Alliance founding board member and also a new judge on our prestigious People in Retail Awards 2024. He is currently advising, CTO, CPO, and CDO’s in various world-famous brands on broad aspects of Digital product, technology strategy and leadership.

Yasmin Topia is CEO and Founder of Sociate AI, a multi award-winning AI startup and creator of the world’s fastest learning fashion AI, instantly combining breaking fashion trends, with customer intent, personalisation data and styling expertise, to give customers the shopping experience of their dreams and to enable any retailer or brand easily and immediately embrace conversational commerce and benefit from over a 100% search to purchase conversion uplift. Yasmin is a serial AI entrepreneur- with past ventures back by Microsoft, JaguarLandrover and Silicon Valley VCs- with a back ground in sales having won and delivered of £40m in new business at Adecco and PwC. Yasmin started her career as a sales assistant in retail.

Gianfranco Cuzziol is an engaging individual who has traversed the agency – client-side divide. He is an experienced CRM, data, business transformation expert with a track record of both setting and delivering customer strategy, with customer and business objectives at the centre. Prior to his most recent role as Head of Customer Business Lead at Dr Martens, he was Avon International CRM and Personalisation Lead with Natura & CO for nearly five years, working across four iconic brands – Aesop, Avon, Natura and The Body Shop – setting their CRM and personalisation vision. Prior to that he was Global Head of CRM at Aesop for over two years, responsible for delivering business transformation projects centred on CRM, loyalty and subscription. This included a global remit delivering global and regional capability / technology to support a global CRM programme across 23 markets.

Sanish Mondkar is the founder and CEO of Legion. He has over 20 years of leadership experience in products, technology, and cloud operations. Before founding Legion, Sanish was the EVP and Chief Product Officer at SAP with responsibility for all procurement and business network areas, representing over $1B of annual revenue.  Prior to SAP, Sanish was Chief Product Officer and EVP at Ariba, where he was responsible for the creation of several market-leading enterprise products, including the Ariba Network from the ground up, which is the largest business network in the procurement space. Sanish holds a Bachelor of Computer Engineering from Pune University and a Masters of Computer Science from Cornell University.

 

Trond Kongrød is a seasoned executive with extensive leadership experience in the commercial sector. Serving as the CEO at Inovretail, he has been at the forefront of steering the company’s strategic direction towards innovation and cutting-edge retail solutions. With a focus on leveraging technology to enhance the retail experience, Trond has played a pivotal role in transforming traditional retail operations towards Q-Commerce. His expertise in omnichannel strategies and customer engagement has been instrumental in developing partnerships and driving the company’s expansion into new markets. With international experience and a nuanced understanding that markets vary yet trends are global, Trond possesses the expertise to leverage technology to fuel retailers’ growth.