Welcome to The Tech List 2024 – the definitive index of the most influential leaders representing 50 businesses driving the future of digital retail.
Retail Week’s annual showcase recognises the people behind retailers, brands, suppliers, tech titans and start-ups who are powering the ecommerce and in-store tech innovations making the industry stand to attention.
And what a list it is.
There are only seven people who make a consecutive appearance from our previous Tech List, making this cohort not only highly diverse but demonstrative of how rapidly digital retail is evolving.
The landscape is not standing still – as evidenced by shared solutions and key tech trends pioneered by our 50 leaders.
These are the 50 digital leaders you should be working with and taking inspiration from this year
AI is moving into the mainstream with Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI and owner of Chat GPT, The Very Group’s digital customer experience director Paul Hornby and Cindy Rose, chief operating officer for global enterprise sales at Microsoft, among those leveraging its potential with transformative impact.
Stores are getting digital facelifts and becoming more immersive, as highlighted by Alia Gogi, Asia president at Sephora, and her work launching a tech-enabled store of the future, and Dropit Shopping founder and CEO Karin Cobili with her plug-in solution that adapts to any retail tech stack system. The business case for checkoutless stores is being proven by Tomasz Suchański at Poland’s Żabka Nano stores.
Leaders are doubling down on loyalty with everyone from Tesco’s CTO Guus Dekkers, Pets at Home’s CIO William Hewish and OnBuy CEO Cas Paton rethinking customer membership programmes and what ‘good’ means when it comes to digital rewards.
Crime-tackling solutions are another focus, with FaceWatch chair Nick Fisher celebrated for his solution that helps retailers identify repeat offenders, while sustainability goals are being made more achievable by the likes of Kintra Fibers co-founders Alissa Baier-Lentz and Billy McCall and their "future-friendly" fabrics for the fashion industry.
The Tech List 2024 is not limited to UK leaders and highlights global innovation from India, China, Europe and the US.
However, when it comes to representation in the tech ecosystem, there is still more work to be done. Only 13 of the 53 individuals (25%) celebrated in the list are women, which speaks to a wider systemic issue across retail boardrooms, recruitment processes and a lack of funding for female founders.
But innovation continues at pace and, at a time when inflationary pressures and cost-of-living crises are battering global retail, this is something to be celebrated.
Let us introduce you to The Tech List 2024: the 50 digital leaders you should be working with and taking inspiration from this year.
Methodology
Retail Week’s Tech List was decided by Retail Week’s team of esteemed journalists and industry analysts based on strategic insights, industry impact, financials, column inches and global reach. All information is correct as of January 26, 2024.
The Tech List 2024
View the list below and click through to read their profiles or use the tabs above to view The Tech List by their category.
- Sam Altman, co-founder and chief executive, OpenAI and owner of ChatGPT (Tech titans)
- Asif Aziz, retail director, EE/BT Group (Retailers and brands)
- Alissa Baier-Lentz and Billy McCall, co-founders, Kintra Fibers (Start-ups and disruptors)
- Paula Bobbett, chief digital officer, Boots (Retailers and brands)
- Amy Gershkoff Bolles, former global head of digital and emerging technology strategy, Levi Strauss & Co (Retailers and brands)
- Andrew Bosworth, chief technology officer, Meta (Tech titans)
- Josh Bottomley, chief executive, Dunnhumby (Collaborators)
- Jack Boyle, global co-president of DTC, Fanatics (Start-ups and disruptors)
- Lex Bradshaw-Zanger, chief digital and marketing officer, L’Oréal South Asia Pacific, Middle East and North Africa (Retailers and brands)
- Karin Cabili, founder and chief executive, Dropit Shopping (Collaborators)
- Stacia Carr, vice-president fashion customer experience, Zalando (Retailers and brands)
- Shou Zi Chew, chief executive, TikTok Shop, TikTok (Tech titans)
- Chris Conway, ecommerce director, Co-op (Retailers and brands)
- Guus Dekkers, chief technology officer, Tesco (Retailers and brands)
- Hervé d’Halluin, leader, RFID and referent interactive sport products, Decathlon (Retailers and brands)
- Ron Faris, vice-president and general manager, Nike Virtual Studios, Nike (Retailers and brands)
- Nick Fisher, chair, Facewatch (Collaborators)
- Vivek Ganotra, chief executive, Ingenuity Commerce (Collaborators)
- Alia Gogi, president Asia, Sephora (Retailers and brands)
- David Guggina, executive vice-president, supply chain operations (US), Walmart (Retailers and brands)
- Bobby Healy, founder and chief executive, Manna (Start-ups and disruptors)
- William Hewish, chief information officer, Pets at Home (Retailers and brands)
- Paul Hornby, digital customer experience director, The Very Group (Retailers and brands)
- Colin Huang, founder, Temu (Start-ups and disruptors)
- Kirsty Keoghan, global general manager of fashion, eBay (Retailers and brands)
- Thomas Kurian, chief executive, Google Cloud (Collaborators)
- Tobias Lütke, founder and chief executive, Shopify (Tech titans)
- Óscar García Maceiras, chief executive, Inditex (Retailers and brands)
- Kash Mahmood, group ecommerce and marketing director, Next (Retailers and brands)
- John Martin, interim chief executive, Ocado Solutions (Collaborators)
- Zak Mian, chief transformation and technology officer, John Lewis Partnership (Retailers and brands)
- Susie Moan, chief data officer, Currys (Retailers and brands)
- Jordi Álex Moreno, chief information technology officer, data, privacy and security, Mango (Retailers and brands)
- Clodagh Moriarty, chief retail and technology officer, Sainsbury’s (Retailers and brands)
- Guy Murdoch, chief executive, Cust2Mate (Start-ups and disruptors)
- Krista Nordlund, chief digital product officer, Marks & Spencer (Retailers and brands)
- Simone and Roxanne Oloman, founders, Need It For Tonight (Start-ups and disruptors)
- Simon Palmer, group information technology director, Frasers Group (Retailers and brands)
- Parag Parekh, chief digital and technology officer, Ingka Group (Retailers and brands)
- Cas Paton, founder and chief executive, OnBuy (Collaborators)
- Dobo Radichkov, chief data officer, Holland & Barrett (Retailers and brands)
- Moses Rashid, founder and chief executive, The Edit LDN (Start-ups and disruptors)
- Cindy Rose, chief operating officer, global enterprise sales, Microsoft (Collaborators)
- Michael Smith, chief information officer, Estée Lauder (Retailers and brands)
- Tomasz Suchański, chief executive, Żabka (Retailers and brands)
- Tim Sweeney, founder and chief executive, Epic Games (Collaborators)
- Matt Truman, co-founder and executive chair, True (Collaborators)
- Jeyandran Venugopal, chief technology officer, Flipkart (Retailers and brands)
- Werner Vogels, chief technology officer, Amazon (Tech titans)
- Michael Wang, founder and chief executive, Cider (Start-ups and disruptors)
The Tech List was produced by
Megan Dunsby
Senior commercial content editor and report lead
Nick Hughes
Report writer
Rachel Horner
Production editor
George MacDonald
Executive editor
Hugh Radojev
News editor
Ellis Hawthorne
Features editor
Chloe Mills
Reporter
Ritika Bhoora
Reporter
Megan Robinson
Reporter
Lisa Byfield-Green
Research director
Beth Bloomfield
Senior analyst, Lumina Intelligence
Alban Bizet
Senior designer
Stephen Eddie
Managing editor
The Tech List is independent editorial content produced by Retail Week and decided by Retail Week’s expert team of journalists and analysts. It has not been shown to sponsors prior to publication for approval.
Built with Shorthand