The 2022 Most Influential in Ecommerce kick off a year of sharing excellence

There has not been a lot of breath-catching in retail since the COVID-19 pandemic came sweeping in seemingly from nowhere, throwing all our lives upside down and rocking businesses around the world.

But Wednesday was a day for taking a breath, at least between breathlessly cheering on Signifyd’s 30 Most Influential in Ecommerce for 2022, who spent part of the day cheering on each other. This year’s honorees gathered for an inaugural and celebratory meeting. There they shared wisdom and got to know each other as they embarked on a year-long program to both acknowledge and propagate ecommerce excellence. 

The 30 honorees announced Wednesday displayed uncommon courage, creativity, compassion and commerce know-how in what was one of the most disruptive years in retail history. They found opportunity in disruption — not just opportunity to move their businesses forward, but opportunity to serve their customers, who were facing massive disruption of their own. 

Perseverance inspired the Most Influential in Ecommerce awards

J. Bennett, Signifyd senior vice president, operations & corporate development, acknowledged the odds retailers have faced since the pandemic began. While welcoming honorees, he explained that it was the stories of perseverance in the face of those odds that inspired the annual Most Influential in Ecommerce awards program. 

“We wanted to say, ‘Hey, there are human beings that are struggling and succeeding and doing really awesome things with their brands and their companies and their customers,” Bennett said to start the virtual get-together of commerce leaders from around the world. “And they’re innovating in ways that require talent and require technology. And can we help people who are doing cool things get together, get the recognition that they deserve?”

The awesome things 2022’s honorees were doing ran a wide gamut. Collectively, they recalibrated; replatformed; formed new partnerships; launched collaborations; served their communities; welcomed, served and retained legions of new customers, opened new sales channels and did so much more than survive. They thrived.

The Most Influential came from many retail verticals and roles

Having the Most Influential in Ecommerce together in one virtual room was inspirational. They came from many retail verticals and diverse backgrounds. They worked various roles vital to the ecommerce enterprise — operations, finance, digital marketing, IT, payments, customer care, fraud and risk. There were founders, CEOs and digital agencies who share their expertise to fuel success. 

The group talked about challenges — launching direct-to-consumer, managing inventory with demand spiking and supply chains crumbling, expanding into B-to-B sales, launching a serious ecommerce operation for the first time, fending off bot attacks and working with the understanding that COVID isn’t over and it’s hard to know when it will be over or even what “over” means in this case. 

They also shared chit-chat, the kind that forms the foundation of professional relationships and friendships. They shared book recommendations (“Do the **** Work: Lowbrow Advice for High-Level Creativity,” for those who are curious.) 

And the Most Influential in Ecommerce received some practical advice. First from 2021 honoree Rohan Cherian, who was recognized last year as an ecommerce executive at Toys R Us Canada and who has since co-founded his own Root Digital, a consultancy and advisory firm focused on digital strategy. 

His advice was comprehensive, but to boil it down, he urged the new class of the Most Influential in Ecommerce to take the opportunity to freely give and get advice from each other. 

The Most Influential in Ecommerce will shape the future of retail

Next came Forrester VP, Principal Analyst Sucharita Kodali, a leading retail thinker, who took honorees through the key trends that will be driving retail in the near future, including consumer sentiment on the pandemic, how market share is shifting in ecommerce and what’s ahead for buy, now and pay later.

The future, of course, is uncertain, but there is a high probability that the honorees who gathered on Wednesday will be a step ahead of whatever is coming next. For that reason, among others, the names of Signifyd’s 30 Most Influential in Ecommerce Fraud Insurance for 2022 are worth remembering. They are: 

• Aashima Sahgal, Director, Subscription and Ecommerce, Arlo Technologies
• Alex Arkhangelskaya, Senior Product Manager, Rent the Runway
• Alpheus Clendening, D2C E-Commerce & Digital Marketing Lead, Revlon
• Blas Caraballo, Vice President Digital Payments, Walmart Mexico
• Brianna Walling Burwell, Director of Finance, Ferguson Digital Commerce, Build with Ferguson
• Darin Lynch, Founder & CEO, Irish Titan
• Dawn Trenson, Vice President of Ecommerce, FILA
• Devin Miller, Chief Technology Officer at SKIMS / Senior Vice President of Technology at Good American
• Derrick Riley, Sr. Director of Global Ecommerce, DITA Eyewear
• Devan Nielsen, Director of Fraud Prevention, Overstock.com
• Diana Haussling, VP – GM, Digital Commerce, Colgate-Palmolive
• Dilip Dand, Director, Customer Service Strategy & Innovation, Albertsons Companies
• Frank DeMaria, Vice President of Digital Engineering & Platforms, MillerKnoll
• Jaanvie Asnani, Global Business Process Expert For Online Payments and Fraud, Philips
• Jamie Lee, Head of Digital Experience, Everlane
• John Surdakowski, Founder & CEO, Avex
• Jonathan Blua, Director, Ecommerce Operations, Boardriders
• Jordan Major, Head of Ecommerce, Au Vodka
• Kurt Theobald, CEO, Classy Llama
• Neill MacCarthaigh, Fraud Manager, eShopWorld
• Pablo Stobbia, Payments & Fraud Specialist, Pandora
• Philipp Göpfert, COO, Vice Golf
• René Meindl, Technical Program and Project Manager D2C, Samsung Electronics Germany
• Shawn Bradford, Director of Customer Care, Carbon38
• Sheena Brady, Founder & Tea Sommelier, Tease
• Sue Beckett, SVP of Digital Marketing & Ecommerce, Lovesac
• Ted Guglielmi, Vice President, Digital Experience Platforms, Indigo
• Tim Edwards, Founder and Commercial Director, supercharged commerce
• Tom Giacalone, Vice President, Digital and Customer Care, Vera Bradley
• Travis Hess, Chief Executive Officer, BVA

Photo by Getty Images

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