The Impact 50 | 2026
The Innovators Turning Vision into Velocity.
GET TO KNOW THE IMPACT 50 HONOREES
Claire Le Néel
Title: Director, Digital Projects & Innovation
Company: Louis Vuitton
… making sure whatever we build disappears into a better experience, not into another feature we’re bragging about.”
Kelley Hanifin
Title: Head of Personalization
Company: Tapestry
… a narrower path before they’re ready. When we started this team, I built a strategy around replicating that in-store instinct digitally instead of just chasing what competitors were doing.”
Noah Gonzalez
Title: Head of Brand PR & Talent Relations
Company: H&M U.S.
… with colleagues and teammates or those you cultivate with customers and vendors, relationships remain a powerful form of currency that brands can leverage to drive success and stand out.”
Ivan Dashkov
Title: Head of Marketing Technology
Company: Puma
… consumers. That instinct has taken me from helping build the NBA’s early social presence to bringing PUMA onto TikTok ahead of our peers, and now to building AI experiences that let fans participate in product creation. The brands that win aren’t always the biggest. They’re the ones willing to move first, learn fast, and understand that technology is never the point. The point is using it to give people something meaningful that wasn’t possible before.”
Myriam Buffa
Title: Sr. Director, CRM, Ecommerce
Company: Clarins Group
… to more rewarding Club Clarins benefits. Gamification is next, giving members even more ways to engage and earn rewards.”
Scott Kenworthy
Title: Sr. Director, AI & Innovation
Company: PVH
Brooke Lieberman
Title: Sr. Director, Lifecycle Marketing & Marketing Technology
Company: David Yurman
… to understand what will genuinely matter to the customer—and turning that understanding into experiences that build both lasting relationships and measurable business value.”
Emily Campbell
Title: Director, Ecommerce
Company: Dolce Vita
… move initiatives faster. I also believe in testing new ideas and letting data guide the final decision, ensuring we focus on what delivers the best results.”
Maya Ganguly
Title: Director, Retention Marketing
Company: Authentic Brands Group
… where and how often they want to hear from you. At ABG, I do that across a portfolio of brands with distinct voices, but the most important part of the job is giving each customer the right reason to want to come back.”
Stephanie Shui
Title: Director, Global Omni Business Strategy, Customer Experience
Company: Kate Spade New York
… talk about their experience, not just the product. Driving scale and consistency was the opportunity, so we launched an AI enabled training tool that lets associates practice core behaviors, turning early success into something repeatable, store by store.”
Max Wallace
Title: Sr. Director, Customer Experience
Company: Tommy John
… the answer matters more than the person in front of them, and that’s backwards for retention.”
Lynn Canfield
Title: Sr. Director, Digital Marketplaces
Company: Marquee Brands
… Amazon, coaching someone through product detail pages, or providing competitive insights, my job is meeting partners where they are, not assuming they should already know this.”
Sandy Kim
Title: Head of Retail
Company: Wacoal America
… as expert guides for our customers. This approach enables us to open eight new stores while maintaining the strong culture that makes them successful.”
Umair Shabbir
Title: Sr. Director, Digital Technology
Company: Conair
… from search engines to answer engines. Brands optimizing for AI visibility are positioning themselves to capture market share and consumer attention.”
Scott Streit
Title: Director, Software Engineering
Company: YETI
… people actually want, not friction to be automated away, so I think brands need to find ways to preserve the shopping experience when going agentic.”
Ashley Hall
Title: Sr. Director, Integrated Marketing
Company: Every Man Jack
… creating compelling content, reaching out with a personal congratulatory note and package, or determining who we should partner with, is a human call.”
Logan Karam
Title: AI Program Director
Company: Fabletics
…skills and confidence to build with it. My role is to connect those pieces, break down silos, and turn AI from a set of tools into a capability the business can scale.”
John Wong
Title: Sr. Director, Strategic Partnerships & Merchandising
Company: Kenneth Cole
… handbags for that same brand isn’t lost on me, it’s the kind of full-circle moment that reminds you why you got into this in the first place.”
Adrien de Bontin
Title: Director, Omnichannel & Retail Systems
Company: Louis Vuitton
… that yet. Real business decisions still have to shape how the system behaves. The technology enables the experience, it doesn’t invent it.”
Cliff Chang
Title: Director, Digital Marketing
Company: Mackage | APP Group
… demand, media amplifies it, first-party data captures it, and CRM and ecommerce convert it. The opportunity is getting all of those pieces working together.”
Sarah Townsend
Title: Director, Retention Marketing
Company: rag & bone
… digital-first here, but the real work is the same: understanding what a person actually wants before asking them to buy something.”
Vanessa Trejo
Title: Director, Digital Merchandising, GTM & Marketplaces
Company: Timberland
… isn’t the channels, it’s the willingness to test something small before betting big on it. That instinct is what has driven us to meet the consumer where they are and move into marketplaces without losing control of the brand.”
Derin Masha
Title: Sr. Director, Global Consumer Engagement
Company: Parlux
… Essence by tying it into a real cultural story, only happened because we were willing to make a bold call instead of playing it safe.”
Isaac Chan
Title: Head of Customer Experience
Company: Vita Coco
… I’ve focused on connecting product reviews, loyalty program, digital shelf content, Reddit, and AI search visibility to ensure the customer’s voice shapes every stage of the journey.”
Marissa Steinmetz
Title: VP, Digital Product
Company: Coterie
… is my belief that great products start with understanding the customer: what they need, where we can improve their experience, and how to make their lives better.”
Cristina Furlan
Title: Director, Business Growth – Eyebuydirect
Company: EssilorLuxottica
… connecting the dots, challenging how things have traditionally been done, and turning complexity into something simple for the customer.”
Ipshita Chakraborty
Title: Director, Data Science & Applied AI
Company: HelloFresh
… comes down to the data foundation and statistical rigor I spent years building. That’s what decides whether AI achieves real enterprise impact or remains a demo.”
Domonique Brown
Title: Head of Customer Experience
Company: Liquid I.V.
… our consumers whether across 120,000 retail locations in the U.S. or online, offering 24/7 customer support through digital transformation, and keeping the human touch core to our business.”
Hannah Myers
Title: Director, Marketing
Company: SMAC Entertainment
… to quickly uncover what makes a brand distinctive and turn that insight into meaningful growth across SMAC’s diverse portfolio.”
Jonathan Thesing
Title: Director, Data Science & Analytics
Company: Torrid
… third-party expertise rather than in place of it. That kind of transparency matters when you’re deciding where to invest your next marketing dollar.”
Deepak Chandak
Title: Sr. Director, Product & Innovation
Company: Tapestry
… high-performing team than almost anything else, and that’s not something you can shortcut with process or technology.”
Harry Roth
Title: Sr. Director, Ecom, CRO & Customer Journeys
Company: AS Beauty
… requires deep knowledge of the customer. Every department benefits from understanding them, most efficiently through data-driven testing, experimentation, and personalization — breaking down silos between acquisition, retention, and merchandising so we work as one continuous flywheel guiding the customer through their journey.”
Alec Taitz
Title: Director, Acquisition
Company: Boll & Branch
… to make confident decisions about where and how to reach our customers. Waiting for certainty that doesn’t exist means moving slower than the business needs.”
Xavier Vaissiere
Title: Director, Category Insights & Analytics
Company: Colgate-Palmolive
… the next three to five years, finding the big bets, like new categories or markets, before the data even fully exists to justify them.”
Jennifer Cousin-Lewis
Title: Global Director, CRM & Client Development
Company: David Yurman
… to strengthen a client relationship. That perspective guides how I lead CRM and clienteling at David Yurman: bringing together people, data, technology, and AI to empower our teams and elevate the human connection, never replace it.”
Ada Desmond
Title: Director, Digital Experience & DTC
Company: Hint
… our site redevelopment and launch, I was able to triage problems instead of just flagging them for a fix down the road and since then have been building practical AI use-cases to solve real business problems at cost and scale.”
Natalie Chacin
Title: Director, Ecommerce and Digital Marketing, North America
Company: Marimekko
… technology, operations, customer experience, and approach to key consumer moments. The key is creating local relevance while staying true to the brand’s essence.
Daniel Washburn
Title: Director, Ecommerce
Company: Pressed Juicery
… Of course, and that’s where innovative solutions are forged”
Anneris Halady
Title: Sr. Director, Customer & Market Business Intelligence
Company: PVH
… it’s what actually gets people unstuck and making their own decisions again instead of waiting on someone else to.”
Rudy Ribardière
Title: Sr. Ecommerce Director
Company: ba&sh
… why a strategy that works in Europe doesn’t automatically work here, and being the one who can explain that back to headquarters.”
Caitlin Cheung
Title: Global Director, Ecommerce
Company: Frette
… before anyone steps in, so the conversation starts further along. We’re continuing to refine that experience, because the goal was never to automate the relationship. It was to use AI to help us build deeper, more meaningful connections with our customers.”
Hallie Gellman
Title: Head of Commerce Partnerships
Company: NBC News Group
… curiosity, optimism, and the determination to figure out how to turn an idea into something real.”
Alicia Barreto
Title: Director, CRM & Retention
Company: Bogg
… where there are opportunities to introduce them, from API calls and webhooks to the customer signals flowing between your tools (and beyond). That foundation unlocks everything from AI powered personalization to delightfully smart, perfectly timed communications. Get nerdy with your data, roll up your sleeves, and dive in.”
Nicole Mandell
Title: Director, Customer Care
Company: Clarins Group
… customers, learning from the data, continuously improving the experience, and bringing your people along with you. Technology can scale what we do, but people are what make it meaningful.”
Maureen Massry
Title: Sr. Director, Digital Operations
Company: AS Beauty Group
… simplifying our technology, strengthening site health, and being more intentional about where we invest. As a business scales, the focus shifts from enabling growth to building the foundation that can sustain it, because at a certain scale, stability becomes its own kind of growth strategy.”
Hattie Gilpin
Title: Director, Operations
Company: Wellbel
… affiliates instead. It builds something paid acquisition can’t – customers who genuinely believe in the product because they’ve heard firsthand that it works.”
Sofya Penrose
Title: Global Director, CRM
Company: Frette
… just left for college, that’s part of a relationship they built over time. AI can make sure those details aren’t lost and help make the next interaction more thoughtful and personal.”
Eric Ford
Title: Director, IT
Company: Holderness & Bourne
Chantel Oh
Title: Director, CX
Company: Dolls Kill
Kevin Smith
Title: Director, Digital Marketing
Company: Melin