Join us when we explore the technologies that are stopping the retail apocalypse with Pano Anthos of XRC Labs & Ken Pilot of PredictSpring & Beanstalk Ventures.
Pano Anthos leads XRC Labs as its Founder & Managing Director. XRC is an innovation accelerator for the next generation of disruptors in the retail & consumer goods sectors.Having founded 4 startups around key platform shifts, he saw the seismic shift coming to retail & with the right vision & timing recruited Parsons School of Design & Kurt Salmon to be founding sponsors. Now with 38 accelerated startups, 10 active world class retail sponsors, 100+ business mentors, Pano has built a world-class ecosystem for retail & consumer goods innovation at XRC Labs. He speaks regularly at NRF national & regional meetings, Shoptalk & RILA executive conferences. He leverages a deep startup network in Silicon Valley, New York, & Boston to fuse leading technology, E-commerce & user experience innovations to existing customer-oriented businesses.
Ken Pilot has over 30 years of retail, C-level operating experience at Gap, J.Crew, Ralph Lauren & others. As a consultant he is focused on shifting the current mindset of omni-channel retail to DTC. Retailers with stand alone divisions often compete against each other rather than working together to support driving sales. Customers don't care which channel supports their purchase, they simply want their purchase supported in a frictionless manner. Reducing "clicks to purchase" can be as powerful in-store as it is online. Ken evaluates Points of distribution, store productivity, inventory maximization, online efficiency, social media reach, mobile capability, customer & sales associate centric apps, conversion & check out. Working with a Best in class mobile platform developer, as well as RFID & Beacon leaders. Ken will work with companies to strategize pop up solutions, smaller stores, less inventory coordinating technology implementation to improve the in-store experience for customers & associates. The goal is to create a frictionless experience for the consumer & an improved Sales, Profit & ROI.
