Speakers include:

David Clark, Group Digital Director, Frasers Group  

David Clark was appointed as Digital Director at Frasers Group in June 2022. Before this, David accumulated over 17 years of experience in the consumer goods and fashion ecommerce sector, working with leading brands, including Selfridges, Zalando and Asos, and held a range of positions, including in digital strategy, buying, trading and operations. With this extensive experience and knowledge, David plays a key role in the acceleration and execution of the group’s elevation strategy and Frasers’ digital development, where most recently he has been transforming the business’ entire digital infrastructure and capabilities. 

Maria White, SEO Global Lead, Kurt Geiger

Maria works as Global SEO Lead at Kurt Geiger and is a regular contributor at Search Engine Land. Maria specialises in attracting relevant and converting traffic globally for Kurt Geiger, as well as consumer trends analysis, technical and international SEO, and global digital PR. In October 2023, Maria was featured in Google’s Search Central conference in Zurich. 

Chris Blatchford, Chief Technology Officer, Kingfisher

Chris Blatchford is Chief Technology Officer at Kingfisher, leading the development and delivery of the group’s technology strategy as part of the retailer’s ongoing digital transformation. Chris joined Kingfisher from RELX Elsevier, where he most recently served as Chief Technology Officer. Before that, he held a variety of technology roles at Thomson Reuters, including Head of Enterprise Technology, and served as Head of Professional Services, Europe, at CPA Global. 

Shaun Pearce, Chief Technology Officer, Gousto 

Shaun joined Gousto in 2015 after working at Amazon Web Services where he led the UK retail practice, helping customers to adopt cloud technologies. In his role as Gousto's CTO, Shaun is responsible for overseeing all aspects of technology across the business, keeping a clear focus on the customer experience, whilst driving organisational growth and innovation 

Christina Rapsomanikis, Global Vice-President for Digital and Ecommerce, Mars

Christina is a seasoned digital leader having worked across various FMCG and luxury businesses including Unilever, Nespresso and Coty, as well as her own direct-to-consumer fashion business. Today, Christina leads global digital and ecommerce transformation for Mars, Pet Nutrition. Responsible for the enterprise foundation and transformation agenda, anchored in the voice of the pet parent. 

Dean Harris, Head of Co-op Media Network, the Co-op

Dean is a retail marketing leader with 15 years of experience across retail media, loyalty, CRM, trade planning, advertising, and customer strategy. He began his career in advertising working on McCann Erickson’s B2B client portfolio, before moving to the Co-op where he has spent more than a decade driving the growth of Co-op’s food and life services businesses in a variety of functions.

In his current role as Head of Co-op Media Network, Dean is responsible for transforming Co-op’s retail media business. Which involves unlocking the media advantages of convenience shopping to grow Co-op’s advertising partners’ brands.

Mårten Al Fakir Larsson, Head of Brand & Marketing, H&M Group Creator Studio

Mårten is Co-founder of and Head of Brand and Marketing at Creator Studio, part of the H&M Group. His background is as CMO and Head of Marketing at various startups including Wolt Sweden (acquired by DoorDash), Swedish online marketplace Fyndiq and YDB, and as a business and brand strategy consultant. 

Mark Sims, Store Proposition Lead, Store of the Future, John Lewis Partnership

Mark lead’s the development of complex store propositons across John Lewis department stores. Mark has led transformational change across Waitrose, O2 and B&Q, developing new format stores and step-changing the operating model, services and experience through digital, physical and human interventions. 

Matt Frank, Chief AI and Innovation Officer, Ancoris

Matt is an expert in building, managing, and running cloud platforms for Enterprise organisations. Formerly at the Bank of England and Sky where he was responsible for the organisation's data platforms, and at KPMG where he managed a team of cloud and DevOps engineers, Matt has robust experience helping organisations adopt, manage and secure cloud technology to drive innovation and efficiency. 

Steve Warrington, SVP of Client and Industry Engagement, Upp

Steve heads up the Client Success and Strategy team at Upp - a leader in AI automation for online product advertising, streamlining multichannel campaign deployment. Bringing his 20 years of knowledge and experience in the retail sector, Steve is enabling retailers to achieve success through the implementation of adaptive AI in their paid media channels. 

He has worked for large retailers in the UK, across home, garden, fashion and as part of his role within the Kingfisher Group where he worked for B&Q, where he was part of the senior management, which helped scale the online business significantly. He also worked across brands within Kingfisher from a marketing centre of excellence standpoint, where his blueprint of marketing tech, measurement, analytics and agency approach, was rolled out across the £13bn retail group. 

Rahul Arora, Senior Vice President, Head of Emerging Business UK and Europe, EXL

Rahul is Senior Vice President and leads the UK and strategy for EXL’s Emerging Business Unit. He has more than 25 years of experience in outsourcing, transformation and change management.

Rahul focuses on solving industry-specific problems using a mix of industry knowledge, data, digital innovation and AI. He drives solutions that are both innovative and adaptable, making a significant impact for clients. His expertise in AI and analytics deployment has earned him recognition and numerous awards. 

Lisa Byfield-Green, Data and Insights Director, Retail Week

Lisa is responsible for Retail Week’s data insight, analyst content and advisory research. Previously, she worked as a senior retail analyst for online and digital, leading research at IGD and Planet Retail (now Edge by Ascential) in the UK and more recently LZ Retailytics in Germany.

Lisa regularly provides commentary on the retail industry and presents at briefings, conferences and workshops.

Megan Dunsby, Senior Commercial Content Editor, Retail Week

Megan Dunsby is Retail Week’s Senior Commercial Content Editor. A former journalist and features editor, she joined Retail Week in January 2019 to help brands leverage content to reach the people that matter in retail. Megan leads Retail Week’s flagship reports, the Retail 100 and Tech List, which recognise the most influential people in the sector, and the businesses they represent. In 2018, she was named among The Drum’s 50 Under 30 Top Women in Digital. 

James Knowles, Head of Content Innovation, Retail Week

James Knowles is Head of Content Innovation for the Retail Week commercial projects team.

He has spent 10 years as a journalist, working across both consumer celebrity and lifestyle magazines and business trade titles, including Retail Jeweller and Drapers, before joining Retail Week in July 2017.

Grace Bowden, Head of Diversity Content, Retail Week

Grace is head of diversity content at Retail Week and oversees content for the Future Leaders programme.

She was previously head of content for the Retail Week editorial team and has covered the retail sector for 10 years.

Rebecca Taylor, Commercial Content Manager, Retail Week

Rebecca Taylor is Retail Week Connect’s Commercial Content Manager, and is responsible for helping to grow and deliver Retail Week’s bespoke sponsored reports and events, across themes from stores and the consumer to supply chains and tech.

With more than seven years' experience in content-focused roles, Rebecca specialises in across-the-board brand interactions and storytelling; engaging audiences at all stages of their brand lifecycle through authentic, vibrant and quality content.

Chloe Mills, Reporter, Retail Week

Chloe Mills is a reporter at Retail Week. She joined Retail Week in 2023 and covers all things fashion.

She was previously a writer and researcher on the celebrity desk at The Media Eye and began her career as a features writer at luxury lifestyle magazine Aspire.