Featured Session

Tuesday
July 26
5:00 pm–5:45 pm
American Express Theatre

The new consumer

Dan Frommer, founder and Editor in Chief of The New Consumer, kicks off NRF Nexus with a fast-paced, data-informed look at the fast changing consumer. The former Editor in Chief of Recode, Dan will explore how new consumers think, what they want, and where this leads retailers in meeting their dynamic needs. Drawing on the latest consumer spending data and results from a proprietary survey, Dan presents a new edition of this semi-annual Consumer Trends report, a collaboration he leads with investment firm Coefficient Capital. What’s different about 2022 than recent past years?
Wednesday
July 27
8:30 am–9:15 am
American Express Theatre

Walmart's vision for ecommerce excellence in 2022 and beyond

Walmart has made significant investments in its digital retail operations, pushing the envelope on ecommerce sales and growing the business by 70% during the pandemic. Taking over the helm of Walmart’s digital business in February (a role previously held by Marc Lore until early 2021), Walmart EVP and Chief Ecommerce Officer Tom Ward is leveraging his previous experience leading Walmart’s autonomous delivery and other last-mile innovation initiatives to help the retail giant further scale its omnichannel growth and ecommerce successes.
Wednesday
July 27
9:15 am–10:00 am
American Express Theatre

Transforming the guest and team member experience through technology

The last two years presented what seemed like insurmountable challenges for most teams and industry sectors. Buffalo Wild Wings' President, Lyle Tick and Inspire Brands' Chief Information Officer Raghu Sagi had to move quickly to develop and deploy next-gen technology to improve the guest and team member experience. The result?

Wednesday
July 27
10:30 am–11:00 am
American Express Theatre

Scaling tech in new markets with a culture-first approach

At the core of lululemon is its culture: innovative, diverse, inclusive and authentic. When Julie Averill, EVP and Chief Technology Officer, set out to scale lululemon’s technology team into India, she led with a culture-first approach. In this engaging session, Julie will discuss lululemon’s journey - where they’ve been, and where they’re going. She will share highlights from their India Tech Hub inauguration, which brought lululemon’s culture into the community while honoring India’s culture and heritage.
Wednesday
July 27
12:45 pm–1:15 pm
American Express Theatre

Democratizing social commerce and the keys to influencer marketing

Eighty-eight percent of consumers purchase products that their friends have recommended, and with 4.5 billion consumers currently on social media platforms, leveraging influencer-based recommendations in marketing campaigns is no longer a nice-to-have but essential to the business. Many consumers are sharing daily the products they have found and they love. There is a demand for creators to monetize their taste and influence directly from social platforms but the tools to do so have been limited.
Wednesday
July 27
1:15 pm–1:45 pm
American Express Theatre

AI in commerce: Where retailers can focus their energy to maximize AI’s true potential

Artificial Intelligence can be a catch-all for buzzword with little value unless applied “intelligently”. In this session Jason “Retailgeek” Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis Groupe, will explore the latest use-cases for AI in commerce. He will explore real-world examples of the most successful AI wins and consider both what worked and what did not. Separate the hype from the hits and learn why AI may not always be the best goal.

Wednesday
July 27
3:30 pm–4:00 pm
American Express Theatre

Foundations of practical futurism

In a tech-driven world and business environment of accelerating change and increasing complexity, the ability to see and think like a futurist offers a growing strategic advantage. But “embracing the future” in business has too often meant succumbing to endless hype cycles, techno babble and wishful thinking.
Thursday
July 28
9:00 am–9:30 am
American Express Theatre

Metaverse and crypto: Retail’s next digital frontier

Alfred Chang, Co-CEO of PacSun joins Nexus to share how the iconic youth retailer is catering to a fully digital generation - accepting cryptocurrency for purchases, incorporating VR into store experiences, debuting its own NFTs, and entering the online entertainment space with a brand new fantasy interactive mall experience on Roblox called PACWORLD.
Thursday
July 28
9:30 am–10:00 am
American Express Theatre

Navigating the wild and wonderful world of NFTs for retailers and brands

Avery Akkineni, President of VaynerNFT – the latest venture from Gary Vaynerchuck – examines how brands such as Anheuser Busch, PepsiCo and Coinbase are finding success in the Web3 space and what that means for your company.  
Thursday
July 28
12:45 pm–1:15 pm
American Express Theatre

When innovation is your brand: How Domino's delivers next-generation experiences to consumers

When a company is famous for introducing 30-minute delivery, online ordering, delivery tracking, and pizza-warmers, consumers expect it to have creative solutions to a crisis like worldwide lockdowns. Dominos’ SVP of Customer and Store Experiences Christopher (“CTM”) Thomas-Moore explores how the famous pizza franchiser bakes innovation into the brand.
Thursday
July 28
1:15 pm–1:45 pm
American Express Theatre

Buying into better: Future of the consumer industry

The world, and the consumer industry, are changing at an exponential pace. The health of our planet, the health of the industry, and the health of wealth equity are all at unprecedented tipping points whose trajectories will dramatically shape the industry over the next decade. During this session, participants will learn about the six forces shaping the consumer industry, the implications for the industry as well as the responsibility and power we have as both individuals and an industry in proactively shaping our future for the better.
Thursday
July 28
2:15 pm–3:00 pm
American Express Theatre

Succeeding together: Aligning cross-functional teams to deliver innovation

Taking concepts from his new book, Fostering Innovation: How to Build an Amazing IT Team, The Vitamin Shoppe’s COO, Andy Laudato, will share a short introduction on how to design, build, staff, and run a high performing team. Andy will be joined by Gap Inc. CIO Heather Mickman, Tractor Supply CMO, Christi Korzekwa, and Vitamin Shoppe VP of Digital Commerce, Tamara Pircz to discuss universally applicable strategies and techniques that can transform any tech, digital and marketing team into an all-star cast perfectly aligned with an organization’s objectives.
Thursday
July 28
3:00 pm–3:30 pm
American Express Theatre

Fashion and wellness in the metaverse

The wellness space has a natural fit in a virtual environment, evidenced by the successful shift of fitness classes online and mindfulness apps soaring in popularity through COVID.
Thursday
July 28
3:30 pm–4:15 pm
American Express Theatre

Disrupting disruption: How technology connects to retail like never before

We live in a culture of change. Most retailers are overwhelmed by the massive shifts that they have to make to their business models... Covid only made this more immediate. Disruption is everywhere. Digital transformation is the retail imperative. There are several new (and dramatic) realities that will force retailers to rethink many of their commonly held beliefs about what works in stores and online today, and what the future may look like.