REBUILDING RETAIL: DATA INITIATIVES TO CREATE COMMERCIAL UPLIFT
REBUILDING RETAIL: DATA INITIATIVES TO CREATE COMMERCIAL UPLIFT
Agenda Day 1
8:00 am - 8:30 am
EVENT REGISTRATION & COFFEE
8:30 am - 8:35 am
CDO RETAIL EXCHANGE WELCOME
8:35 am - 8:45 am
OPENING ADDRESS FROM THE CHAIR
Matt Large -
Data Leader,
UNiDAYS Ltd
8:45 am - 8:50 am
LIVE POLLS
8:50 am - 9:35 am
KEYNOTE PANEL DISCUSSION: THE 2026 RETAIL DATA PLAYBOOK: FROM DATA GOVERNANCE TO SCALING AI - FUNDING, FOCUS, AND WINNING IN A FLAT-GROWTH MARKET
Matt Large -
Data Leader,
UNiDAYS Ltd
Dominik Olejko - Retail CX & Loyalty Expert, Top 50 Retail Voice 2026
Calvin Ferns - AI, Data & Analytics Lead, Crew Clothing Company
With retail sales flattening, volumes declining and retail confidence still in negative territory, CDOs are being asked to deliver AI-led growth without much top-line tailwind. This panel unpacks how data leaders secure funding, prioritise ruthlessly, and influence the C-suite in a squeezed retail environment.
Understand how flat or volatile retail demand and fragile consumer confidence are reshaping the CDO mandate in retail.
• Discover funding narratives that resonate with CEOs and CFOs when sales growth is weak, but AI and data investment needs grow.
• Explore practical tactics for aligning product, tech, trading and finance around a shared value roadmap.
• Expand on a playbook for sustaining backing across budget cycles and leadership changes.
9:35 am - 10:05 am
PLENARY PRESENTATION: BEYOND CHAT WITH DATA - BUILDING ENTERPRISE-READY ANALYTICS EXPERIENCES WITH AI
Marcos Monteiro -
CEO & Co-Founder,
Veezoo
AI is changing what self-service analytics can become. The next step is no longer just asking questions in natural language, but turning trusted data into interactive reports, data apps, and presentations that business teams can actually use.
In this session, Veezoo CEO Marcos Monteiro shows how data teams can move beyond chat and dashboards to build enterprise-ready analytics experiences with AI. Through a live demo of Veezoo Canvas, he will show how CDOs and Heads of Data can empower their teams to create visual, governed, and reusable data products grounded in a trusted source of truth, with permissions, version control, and traceability built in.
Key takeaways
• Why "chat with data" is only the beginning of AI-powered self-service analytics
• How data teams can build reports, data apps, and presentations from a governed source of truth
• What makes AI-generated analytics enterprise-ready: permissions, version control, traceability, and semantic governance
• How Veezoo Canvas helps teams create visual, reusable analytics experiences without rebuilding everything from scratch
• A practical path to democratizing data beyond dashboards, while keeping trust and control in the hands of the data team
10:10 am - 10:40 am
ONE-TO-ONE BUSINESS MEETINGS & NETWORKING
10:45 am - 11:15 am
ONE-TO-ONE BUSINESS MEETINGS & NETWORKING
11:20 am - 11:50 am
ONE-TO-ONE BUSINESS MEETINGS & NETWORKING
10:10 am - 10:40 am
THINK TANK: FROM DASHBOARDS TO DECISIONS - GOVERNING AGENTIC AI IN RETAIL & CPG
Zahid Hossain -
Partner - Head of New Business UK & Europe,
Tiger Analytics
Saikat Sen - Associate Vice-President, Data & Analytics, Tiger Analytics
Saikat Sen - Associate Vice-President, Data & Analytics, Tiger Analytics
Agentic AI is enabling a shift in decision-making in the Retail world from static dashboard-based approaches to guided commercial workflows. Discover how CDOs can implement the data pipelines, "Hypercare" monitoring and human-in-the-loop guardrails necessary to safely scale action-oriented AI while maintaining absolute strategic control
10:45 am - 11:15 am
ONE-TO-ONE BUSINESS MEETINGS & NETWORKING
11:20 am - 11:50 am
THINK TANK: ONLY BLACK SHEEP: BREWING A HIGH-GROWTH, AI-READY COFFEE RETAIL CHAIN
Gabby Walker -
Head of Data & Analytics,
Black Sheep Coffee
Black Sheep Coffee is opening shops at pace while building its data capability from the ground up. In this interactive Think Tank, discover how the data function has evolved into a fast-growing capability, driving operational decision-making and preparing the ground for AI. Collaborate and discuss what “AI readiness” really looks like, how to structure data teams in high-growth retail, when to look externally vs. build in-house, and how to maintain trust in data as the business scales. Come prepared to share your own lessons learned, including what hasn’t worked, so everyone leaves with a clearer roadmap to their next phase.
11:55 am - 12:25 pm
CASE STUDY PRESENTATION: FROM LEGACY TO CLOUD: TRANSFORMING RETAIL DATA INFRASTRUCTURE FOR AGILITY AND SCALE
Hatem Hamza -
Head of Data,
Hublot
12:25 pm - 12:55 pm
PLENARY PRESENTATION: BEYOND THE DATA SWAMP: BUILDING A SYSTEM OF CONTEXT FOR RETAIL
Chris Lowe -
Principal Solutions Consultant,
Reltio
In today's retail environment, data isn't the problem — disconnected data is. Customer transactions, loyalty programmes, digital behaviour, inventory signals, and supplier intelligence all exist in abundance. Yet for most organisations, these assets remain locked in silos, unable to inform each other and therefore unable to inform the business at the speed and precision it demands. And in the era of agentic AI and hyper-personalisation, your insights are only as strong as the context that connects them. Without that connective tissue, even the most sophisticated AI models are operating in the dark.
This session explores how forward-thinking retail organisations are moving beyond fragmented data ecosystems to build a System of Context — a unified, trusted, and intelligent foundation that connects merchandising, supply chain, marketing, and customer experience into a single source of truth. The result is not just better data. It's faster decisions, stronger AI outcomes, and a measurable commercial edge.
• Why data fragmentation — not data scarcity — is the real barrier to retail AI maturity, and what it costs in revenue, loyalty, and agility
• How a System of Context connects the dots across customer, product, and operational data to enable true personalisation at scale
• Practical approaches to unifying omnichannel signals — in-store, online, and loyalty — into a single, real-time customer profile
12:55 pm - 1:00 pm
LIVE POLLS
1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
NETWORKING LUNCH
2:00 pm - 2:30 pm
ONE-TO-ONE BUSINESS MEETINGS & NETWORKING
2:00 pm - 2:30 pm
THINK TANK: CLEAN-BY-DESIGN: FEEDING RETAIL AGENTS THE TRUSTED DATA THAT DRIVES CUSTOMER LOYALTY
An autonomous retail agent is only as good as the data it can access. Without a unified customer profile and trusted data guardrails, AI agents don't just hallucinate, they risk breaking customer trust entirely. Join us as we discuss how a 'Clean-by-Design' data strategy transforms raw data from an operational liability into a strategic asset, ensuring your autonomous agents have the trusted context required to deliver hyper-personalised, high-impact customer engagement.
2:35 pm - 2:40 pm
LIVE POLLS
2:40 pm - 3:10 pm
PLENARY PRESENTATION: FROM DATA ISLANDS TO INTELLIGENT INSIGHTS: HOW SEMANTIC LAYERS AND KNOWLEDGE FOUNDATIONS ENABLE AI-READY RETAIL DECISIONS
Cristina Rutgers-Astolfi -
Global Head of Analytics,
Ikea Customer Support
How do innovative retailers unlock smarter, faster business decisions in a world of disparate data and rapid AI adoption? Join us to explore practical, real-world approaches to centralising data, establishing shared semantic foundations, and preparing organisations for AI-driven insight — while navigating stakeholder resistance, legacy constraints, and the need for tangible business value.
*Hear lessons learned on centralising, reconciling, and democratizing data, achieving a single version of the truth and driving stakeholder ownership.
*Run through the practical steps and tool choices for designing and implementing semantic knowledge bases to enable trustworthy AI-driven insights.
*Discover tactics for winning buy-in, managing expectations, and shifting from reporting to actionable business insight.
*Explore strategies for integrating AI and third-party data, ensuring real-world value, interoperability, and controlled innovation across retail operations.
3:10 pm - 3:40 pm
PLENARY PRESENTATION: DUNELM'S DATA TRANSFORMATION JOURNEY
Jeff Howarth -
Director of Data Engineering,
Dunelm
Paul Winsor - Head of Retail EMEA, Snowflake
3:45 pm - 4:15 pm
ONE-TO-ONE BUSINESS MEETINGS & NETWORKING
4:20 pm - 4:50 pm
ONE-TO-ONE BUSINESS MEETINGS & NETWORKING
4:55 pm - 5:25 pm
ONE-TO-ONE BUSINESS MEETINGS & NETWORKING
3:45 pm - 4:15 pm
ONE-TO-ONE BUSINESS MEETINGS & NETWORKING
4:20 pm - 5:25 pm
DATA CULTURE WORKSHOP: WHY GOOD DATA STILL FAILS TO CHANGE DECISIONS
Carly Davies -
Head of Data Culture,
Co-op
Rachael Grimshaw - Head of Data Culture, Co-op
Rachael Grimshaw - Head of Data Culture, Co-op
Most organisations do not have a data problem, they have an adoption problem.
This session explores why insight often fails to translate into action, and what leaders can do to build the conditions for data to shape real business decisions.
• Understand data culture beyond theory and buzzwords
• Pinpoint where adoption is breaking down
• Design practical ways to increase real-world use of data
• Leave with actions you can implement immediately
5:30 pm - 6:00 pm
HOT TOPIC PRESENTATION: MANAGING GEO: THE NEW RULES OF STANDING OUT WHEN AI TELLS CUSTOMERS HOW TO FEEL
Niklas Ek -
Group Head of Data, Insights and Analytics,
PureGym
6:00 pm - 6:30 pm
INTERACTIVE “FAILURE FORUM”: THE GREAT AI COVER-UP: WHY 80–95% OF RETAIL AI FAILS (BUT SOMEHOW EVERY SLIDE DECK SAYS IT’S A SUCCESS)
This session is designed as a safe, interactive space where you can openly share and dissect real AI failures anonymously, work together to try to turn these breakdowns around or use them as a warning not to go there.
Across retail, AI pilots are failing faster than a self-checkout with a low battery, yet every QBR mysteriously reports “promising early results.” Research shows 70–85% of AI projects underdeliver, over 80% never make it to full production, and only around 5% of GenAI pilots produce actual ROI. So why does everybody keep announcing only “transformational AI wins”? This is the one session where we drop the corporate poker face, unpack the failures we never put on slides, and laugh (professionally) at the chaos behind the curtain. Bring your war stories. No names, no shame, just the truth.
6:30 pm - 6:35 pm
CHAIRPERSON’S CLOSING REMARKS
Matt Large -
Data Leader,
UNiDAYS Ltd
6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
NETWORKING DRINKS RECEPTION
