You’ve seen them on the street perhaps, or all over your Instagram and Facebook feeds — brands like Warby Parker, Everlane, Cuyana, Allbirds, ADAY and KOIO. These direct-to-consumer brands are proliferating on the retail market more than ever, and in the vast retail landscape, it can be difficult for fashion brands to navigate the best strategies for mixing fashion and lifestyle labels with an e-commerce site, but now a new platform called The Lead will help retailers discover the best strategies for their business.
“The Lead is to focus on the sweet spot in the fashion, retail and technology markets where innovation is shifting behavior and creating new business opportunities,” said Awais Khan, head of research at The Lead.
Timo Weiland, an investment banker-turned-fashion designer, and Noah Gellman, who has worked in start-ups, venture capital, and business development, partnered up to create a vertical media company called The Lead that bridges the fashion and retail industry with Silicon Valley through research, a quarterly print and digital publication, conferences and exclusive events curated specifically for senior level executives, founders, and investors from the worlds fashion, technology, and retail.
“Our analysts track the emerging technology companies innovating at the intersection of these two industries,” reads a statement from The Lead. “We produce three lists of innovation leaders that the Fashion Brand and Retail community must know: The Leading 100 B2B Start-Ups, The Leading 50 D2C Start-Ups, and The Defiant 25 Executives taking chances and pushing their businesses forward.”
On June 21, The Lead will inaugurate the first edition of its conference called Assembly, which will have guest speakers who include Marc Mastronardi, executive vice president, New Business Development, Innovation, Macy’s; Daniella Yacobovsky, co-founder at BaubleBar; Mariah Chase, CEO of ELOQUII; Aaron Sanandres, co-founder and CEO of UNTUCKit; Anna Harman, director, Store No. 8 / Walmart; Jan-Niklas Kokott, head of user experience, Glossier; Laura Del Greco, head of content commerce, NBCUniversal; Renee Paradise, senior director, general manager, eBay Fashion; Russell Scherwin, CMO at IBM Watson Commerce; Bai Gan, chief product officer at Zenni Optical; Brian Long, CEO, Attentive; and Charlie Youakim, CEO, Sezzle.
In addition, The Lead will also honor The Defiant 25 a list that recognizes the leaders, risk takers and visionaries leveraging innovative technology to transform their business. This conference’s honorees are:
David Lauren, Vice Chairman & Chief Innovation Officer, Ralph Lauren
Pete Nordstrom, Co-President, Nordstrom
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