Executive Summary

Fashion Tech Consortium, an accelerator that links together brands, retailers, manufacturers and technology companies in order to provide highly assessed, enterprise-ready tech solutions in the fashion retail industry, hosted the Retail Executive Roundtable June Breakfast, at the Amali in New York City on June 27. Michael Reidbord, Founder and Principal at Fashion Tech Consortium, organized and moderated the intimate gathering for a three-speaker series and open discussion over breakfast. Nearly 20 participants, including founders, presidents, managers and advisors from a range of retail-focused industries—from Facebook, to Brooks Brothers, to artificial intelligence (AI)-focused analytics companies—attended the invite-only breakfast event.

• The presentations by the three speakers ranged from the growth and meaning of AI, machine learning and deep learning, to the human inefficiencies in adopting data-driven practices in the retail space.
• With the increasing implementation of AI in the retail and tech worlds, as well as the shift toward new forms of corporate structures such as self-management, human skills, including emotional intelligence and individual expertise, are becoming more necessary.
• AI, machine learning and deep learning are part of a chain of interconnected technologies. However, more data and test cases are needed for the technology to realistically integrate into many large-scale industries.
• Stagnant risk- and change-averse leadership, particularly in legacy retail industries, can lead to massive revenue losses, due to slow or ineffective adoption of data-driven technologies.
• The event concluded with a roundtable discussion of the future of the retail industry, with a specific focus on what future practices retailers should adopt in order to keep up with digitally-native companies such as Amazon.