PI Apparel 2018 | Speakers

Christian Baier has served as a Managing Director for zLabels since 2012, when he joined the company after nearly eight years advising major blue chip corporations on everything from product pricing to takeover strategy at McKinsey & Co. It was here that he began his professional friendship with Jan Wilmking, and together the two now oversee zLabels’ continued growth and expansion as part of the wider Zalando family.

Jan Wilmking has been a Managing Director of zLabels since 2013. Before joining the company he worked at Rocket Internet and McKinsey & Co., where he advised a global portfolio of clients in retail, consumer goods and fashion. He is a graduate of the Harvard Business School, class of 2010.

Kathryn Armstrong has spent her career in the design, development and production processes of garment manufacturing. She started at the UK factory for Berghaus, overseeing the production of their technical waterproof clothing and backpacks. She later transitioned into the Product Development team for the same brand, working across their full and diverse product ranges specialising in product engineering and costing analysis to ensure delivery of financial targets. Given the knowledge of these processes, she was selected to project manage the PLM implementation for Berghaus and later took the PLM lead role in Pentland Brands to roll out additional PLM functionality and integrate the system across their brand portfolio.

With a background of more than 25 years in sports retailing, Markus is a seasoned professional specialized in product development strategy and processes. During his career he has worked in almost all areas of retail and is now using this experience to lead the Assortment Planning and PLM initiative at Intersport Group headquarters. Over the past 3 years he has guided Intersport through a change in business process for building optimized assortments by using the market information and buyer insight within the PLM system. Currently 22 national INTERSPORT organizations across the world are using the PLM solution effectively to build more profitable assortments, faster.

With 20 years of experience in international project work across the Nordics, Europe, Asia and the United States, Olav has managed the planning and deployment of a number of large scale projects including organizational changes, IT implementations, outsourcing and off-shore work. Today, Olav holds the role Head of Business Applications at Varner and is passionate about driving the retail experience to the next level.

Thorsten’s full working life has been dedicated to the color and trend industry. Having spent 16 years working for the exclusive distribution channel for Pantone in Europe, as well as for trend and color publications, Thorsten joined global trend authority WGSN in 2007. Thorsten ran the Sales and Marketing Teams as an Executive Vice President for EMEA before accepting the exciting role of running and developing the Coloro project, having recognized the huge potential and need for a logical color system in the market.

Aaron Jackson is VP, R&D at Clover Group International Ltd (Clover Mystique), a new role he has held since May 2018. Aaron is an experienced Director of Materials with a demonstrated history of working in the retail industry. Skilled in Trend Analysis, Negotiation, Textiles, Sales, and Retail, Aaron is a strong product management professional . Before joining Clover Group, Aaron was the Director of Raw Material Innovations & Advanced Concepts at Lululemon and has a wealth of experience in Laboratory Management, from sourcing, testing and setting standards for fabrics.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/abinash-sahoo-350b2a25/

Amnon Shalev is the CEO of virtuality.fashion focused on supporting the international market by developing experience in industries such as Digital Printing and 3D Virtualization. Having discussed Fashion 3D Prototyping implementation with many top brands’ designers as well as Product and Production Managers in the last 7 years, Amnon has introduced 3DaaS (3D as a Service) concepts with the intention of making 3D more accessible and affordable to designers who wish to present their ideas at 3D true-to-life quality.

Dr. Andreas Seidl has been the CEO of the Human Solutions Group since 2002. At that time, Andreas' vision was to put the human being at the centre of product development and production, a vision that was new and unique. Today, Dr. Andreas Seidl is a much sought-after expert in the digitalization of processes in the automotive and apparel industries. Assyst has been part of the Human Solutions Group since 2009 and offers software solutions for the apparel industry's entire process chain – from the initial idea, through to product and collection development, design and for the store. Their key technology is their 3D simulation software Vidya, which photorealistically simulates designed clothing.

A graduate of the Diocesan Girls' School, Angie began her career with a 17-year spell at the Shun Hing Group. She was eventually promoted to Managing Director of TDI, Transportation Displays Int'l Ltd., the exclusive advertising concessionaire for many of the territories’ major outdoor advertising contracts, including Kai Tak International Airport and Kowloon-Canton Railway. She subsequently joined Commercial Radio, the trendsetter of local audio broadcast, where she contributed as General Manager. In 2005, Angie answered the family calling and joined the Clover Group as CEO. Since then, Angie has been voted by Forbes Asia as one of Asia’s Power Business Women 2014 and was elected as the Chairwoman of The Hong Kong Intimate Apparel Industries' Association Ltd.

Avihay is a Co-founder of Browzwear and General Manager of Browzwear Israel and in this capacity, is responsible for the vision and delivery of Browzwear’s products. Avihay has over 20 years of experience in managing technology products, and in addition to Browzwear, led start-ups in e-retail and gaming. When he isn’t working, Avihay can be found on an SUP or a bicycle.

Leading Digital Product Creation efforts for Apparel at Nike, Bryston Ulrich has extensive first-hand experience in driving transformational change in the end-to-end apparel process. Bryston has held a variety of roles in retail and automotive industries across multiple disciplines, providing him with unique perspectives on current business challenges and opportunities for innovation.

Christian has a broad collection of experiences which include high-end womenswear design, menswear design, analog and digital patternmaking, garment design and engineering for extended sizes, 3D virtual sampling for apparel and software product management. Today, Christian is a Senior Technical Design & 3D Lead in athletic apparel. Christian has a BFA in Fashion Design and Marketing and an MFA in Fashion Design. He has earned accolades from publications like Elle, Esquire and Women’s Wear Daily.

Christiane Luible is a university professor and heads the Fashion & Technology department at Kunstuniversität Linz. After an apprenticeship as a tailor, Christiane studied Fashion Design and in 2000, developed her first virtual fashion show as her diploma thesis. Having worked with various apparel companies in Germany and the US, Christiane wrote her PhD thesis at the Miralab University of Geneva on the simulation of fabrics and clothes. She published several papers on this topic, gave speeches at Siggraph and collaborated on large European Clothing Research Projects such as E-Tailor, Leapfrog and Haptex. Today her main field of interest is practice-led design research for fashion design. She focuses on 3D modelling and virtual simulation of clothing as well as the influence of digital media on the process of fashion design.

Christiane Wilms-Otto is Head of Quality Management at Takko Fashion GmbH, a company with about 1,900 stores across 17 countries, and one of the largest fashion discounters in Europe. Christiane has more than 20 years of experience in technical product development with her focus always having been at the interface of design, product development and production/sourcing. In her current role, Christiane is responsible for effective product development and her goal is to create a simple and intuitive workflow of technical and quality related data from product development and production, through to post-production processes and back into the loop. Christiane strongly believes in the technical development towards virtual prototyping and the related opportunities this technology offers. 

Daniele Manassero is a 2D & 3D Pattern Maker at the Miroglio Group. Daniele has always worked in roles he's loved and was lucky to start his career in the pre-technology era; starting with scissors and paper, he then followed the trend into 2D CAD and now, has embraced the 3D evolution. Daniele uses CLO3D to make virtual prototypes that give virtual life to the style office ideas in almost no-time, and allow for rapid revisions to ensure the end prototypes are better, saving times and money.

Anne Knoth is Team Leader 3D Virtualization at HUGO BOSS AG in Metzingen (in the southwest of
Germany). She joined the company in 2013. Her team consists of 3D artists and 3D artist specialists
with experience in various sectors like graphic design, fashion design and product design. It is
responsible for providing high-end virtual prototypes of garments - from the first ideas in 3D up to
sales material for the digital showroom, mainly for garments within the sportswear range. The team
works in close cooperation with other departments like Pattern Design, the Creative Departments and
IT.

Dominic Sluiter leads PVH-backed startup STITCH, building software products & transformation services that enable fashion brand to scale their digital value chain with 3D capabilities. STITCH started its journey with the 3D transformation at Tommy Hilfiger & Calvin Klein and is now moving beyond PVH.

For 20+ years Emily has led teams of Engineers, QA, Patternmakers, Graders, and Technical Developers in the fit, construction and global manufacturing of apparel products ranging from denim to down. She has led teams at Levi Strauss & Co., Lands’ End, and Eddie Bauer. Emily developed her own line of apparel and sold it from her retail location, as a result she understands the problems facing both a global business as well as the small independents. Her connection with Alvanon, Inc. began with a comprehensive body scan project for Levi Strauss & Co., where over 50,000 scans were gathered from Levi stores across the United States. Gaining a better understanding of what could be done with the data and how it relates to the Consumer across many different markets has been her focus since 2007. Emily holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Fashion Design & Art History from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and is a long-time resident of the West Coast of the United States. She is presently based out of France.

Federica Giachetti is the President and Co-founder of Morgan Tecnica Spa which was founded in 2008 and which has experienced extraordinary and continuous growth since. Today, Morgan Tecnica Spa is Italy's leading innovative technology company for the fashion industry. With nearly 30 years of experience, Federica personally oversees the software division of Morgan, supervising the development of 2D and 3D CAD, Cut Order Planning and most recently, PLM and PDM projects. Federica firmly believes in the importance of continuous and direct exposure to the industry out in the field.

Florian Reusch is CDO at Drykorn, an exeptional and continously growing German fashion company. In this capacity, Florian is a member of Drykorn's IT SC, the Strategic Board and Executive Board. Florian has led several projects in the past years, from vendor selection programs to the implementation of PLM, BI and SCM software. He promotes the digitization of the supply chain and strongly believes in the importance of a more sustainable textile value chain. Combined he stands for lean processes, complexity reduction and productivity growth.

Geert started his career in 1994 as a Quality Manager within a construction company for mechanical parts. After a couple of years, he decided to embark on a new challenge within textiles, and began as a Maintenance and Infrastructure Manager, maintaining people, renewing machinery and renovating old buildings. In 2002, Geert returned to his first employer as a Logistics Manager for a brief stint, before returning to textiles once more in the Van de Velde R&D department, where he has been for 12 years. Geert helps develop new processes that shorten the development time and helps set up and maintain quality standards for underwires and foam cups. For their long term projects, Geert defines, develops and builds the scanning systems necessary to acquire data and helps define and automate the processing of scan data.

Ineke Siersema is an educator, connoisseur and innovator in the field of digital developments in 2d and 3d design in Fashion. “From real to virtual and vice versa” . In 1995 she studied electronic design after a career as teacher in garment design and creation and as a costume designer. Ineke Siersema applied her knowledge and trained the industry in the new 2D digital developments. From 1997 she is a teacher/researcher at AMFI, where her main topic since 2007 is 3D technology in fashion and 3D design and virtual prototyping. She is an expert in a broad range of 2D and 3D software programs, as CAD, Adobe and CLO3D. Building bridges between fashion performance and gaming she started four years ago VR/AR projects with interdisciplinary student groups working on research questions from the creative industry. Ineke Siersema is a member of the knowledge group Fashion & Technology for Creative Industries. She graduated her Master in Art and Education in 2014 and published research on the influence of 3D virtual prototyping in the fashion design process in relation to higher education. Her work is aimed at serving educational needs in a highly practical approach and building up innovative tools and processes that reflect the new generation of fashion designers. She works for Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences_AMFI, is Digital Professor at the Digital Fashion Group Academy and gives advice and training via her company 3DTODESIGN.

Leonardo Raineri heads the Miroglio Innovation Program (MIP), a programme created with the aim of promoting and facilitating innovation within the companies of the Miroglio Group. It deals with strategic and methodological development of innovation, research and evaluation of innovative solutions for the world of fashion (design, product development, retail, marketing, etc.) in order to facilitate its possible implementation within the company. Leonardo is responsible for all Corporate Entrepreneurship activity that led to and followed the first start-up of the Miroglio Group: the Color Soup, a web platform for printing fabric on demand.

Lien Van de Velde is Project Manager within the Van de Velde R&D team. She has been with the Belgian lingerie company since 2007 in various capacities of product development and design. Passionate about the company’s heritage and eager to explore innovative product design and consumer services, she rallies cross functional teams to support diverse R&D projects. Most recently she developed a chatbot/digital lingerie advisor and a small scale 3D consumer feedback platform.

Lotta Jurica is a passionate multifaceted creative and has worked in sport performance and functional clothing design with adidas for 11 years and before that in US and Finland. She has strong knowledge of garment manufacturing and possesses a good eye for attractive drawing, color and pattern. Browzwear has named their 3D software after her and she continues to lead and inspire a team of multiple at adidas and is seeking to bring industry to the next century .  

Michael Ernst is the Head of the VirLab - Virtual Laboratory - and is the Chairman for textile product development at Niederrhein University with a strong focus on CAD technology used in this field. Michael started his textile career with an apprenticeship as tailor, studied clothing technology and mechanical engineering at the University of Stuttgart, worked at ITV Denkendorf and for different clothing companies before getting appointed as full professor in 2006. Together with his research group, Michael investigates and develops virtual worlds for the clothing industry using various body scanning technologies, all known 2D CAD applications, macro technology, 3D CAD simulation software tools, material detection systems, motion capturing and rendering. His work is aimed at serving industry needs in a highly practical approach but also building up innovative tools and processes that reflect the next generation of product development.

Michael is an experienced IT, Business Development and Management executive with nearly 30 years working and delivering software and service solutions to the Manufacturing, Retail, and Consumer Goods industry. Over the last 20 years, Michael has focused on Design, PLM and Supply Chain solutions within retail, footwear, and apparel. As part of the Digital Business Transformation team at Gerber Technology, Michael provides insight from one of the industries leading technology companies as to how technology will both change and benefit our industry in the years to come.

Nicolas Paulhac is the Head of Content Creation, 3D & Immersive at Adobe for the Substance online library of digital materials. He is also an industrial designer with eleven years of experience working with materials and manufacturing processes at global brands like Nokia, Microsoft, Acer and Hager group.

Pep Torres is a creative director and inventor. Pep is the founder of the Museum of Ideas and Inventions of Barcelona and CEO of Steronoise, an Idea and Invention Studio. Pep also leads the Head of Innovation at Happy Punt, a fast fashion manufacturer and Creative Marketing Manager for everis UK, an International consultancy firm.

Born in Australia and raised in Britain, Raine Hodgson has fulfilled the role of Ready-to-Wear Women’s-Wear Designer and Brand Style Coordinator for Caractere since 2011, after she graduated from Kingston University in Women’s Fashion Design. Her role demands forward fashion thinking and fashion innovation within a commercial climate. Raine is always searching for personal development as a designer and a creative thinker.

Renate Eder is the CCO and Managing Partner at Vizoo. In this capacity, Renate is focused on products and services that facilitate the scaling of material digitization throughout their clients' supply chains. In addition, Renate is building new partnerships within the technology and educational field to create a holistic DPC process.

Before her current role, Renate headed up the 3D Apparel Creation Technologies Team at adidas. There she played a major role in the implementation of 3D technologies and processes throughout the Apparel supply chain. It was here that she first experienced how the mass production of high quality virtual garments can be a reality.

Rudi Schubert is the Director, New Initiatives for the IEEE Standards Association, and lead for its Energy Practice. He leads the IEEE Industry Connections program, operating consensus building interest groups across a portfolio of emerging issues and topics including sustainability, renewable energy, autonomous and intelligent systems, big data, next generation vehicle technologies and many others. Before joining the IEEE, Rudi was a principal engineer for EnerNex, providing technical expertise on technology standards and testing programs to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). He also spent twenty years in progressively expanding leadership roles with Telcordia Technologies (formerly Bellcore) establishing technical criteria and implementation methodologies that become a mandated compliance and certification standard used by US telecom carriers for technology deployment. 

Rudi has a 25+ year record of leading, developing and implementing industry standards and testing programs, and facilitating teams to achieve consensus expectations for functional performance, interoperability, product robustness and safety.  He holds bachelors and masters degrees in mechanical engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey.

Having started her career in positions managing CAD-CAM departments Sandra realized the transfer from manual into digital pattern drawing; in 1990 at Du Pon & De Bruin and in 2000 at Articles. In 2004 she worked in Germany at Hugo Boss for the Boss Black Woman line. Sandra left the industry in 2005 to teach CAD pattern drawing at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (AUAS) -Amsterdam Fashion Institute (AMFI). Since 1990 Sandra has worked with Lectra, Assyst, Gerber and CLO3D software, and began researching 3D virtual prototyping in 2007. At AMFI Sandra teaches since 2009 3D virtual garment creation and since 2016 textile measurement required to create digital textiles, as well as the verification between physical | digital textiles. Next to her teaching Sandra is doing a PhD research into novel methods to linking physical | digital textiles at the AUAS Fashion Research and Technology group and the University of Amsterdam. Sandra holds an Master of Philosophy (MPhil) from the University of Manchester, where she researched the correlation between physical and virtual fabric drape created from objective fabric properties, also including: fabric measurement; the correlation between fabric properties and drape; the perception of fabric drape. Sandra has published work based on her studies, as well as on virtual tailoring and has presented in various events on these topics. Sandra is interested in accurate virtual fitting, comprehendible and scalable physical to digital materials, accuracy of the simulated replica and in training students to prepare them for future positions.

Sarah Krasley is a mission-driven entrepreneur and CEO of Shimmy Technologies, an early stage company focused on an equitable and efficient future of work for the apparel industry. Ms. Krasley has worked at the intersection of design, sustainability, and technology for over a decade and has created design and manufacturing software for hundreds of thousands of designers, engineers, and factory owners all over the world.

Under Sarah’s leadership, Shimmy won the IEEE Grand Challenge for Retail Transformation in 2018, was a finalist for the Tommy Hilfiger Social Innovation Prize, and was accepted into the MIT SOLVE Work of the Future Cohort, and New York Fashion Tech Lab (Springboard). Prior to starting Shimmy, Sarah led Sustainable Product Design + Manufacturing programs at Autodesk where she focused on digital transformation in automotive and heavy machinery manufacturing.

Sarah has a BFA from Pratt Institute, an MBA from the University of San Francisco and joined the adjunct faculty of New York University ITP in 2015. Her work and writing has been featured in media outlets as diverse as Scientific American, Sourcing Journal, The Economist, San Francisco Chronicle, Cosmopolitan, Fast Company, and Al Jazeera America.

Sean Lane is the founder of A42 innovations. His recent endeavors included consulting for the largest eTail company in Europe, delivering a foundation for digital product creation (DPC) and a roadmap for the future. Before consulting, Sean was the Head of Product Technologies & Digital Innovation at Columbia Sportswear, where he was responsible for the technologies that supported Product Creation from design through development, sourcing, costing, and quality. Prior to Columbia Sportswear, Sean was with Nike for 15 years where he held several leadership roles in operations and technology, including Director of Product Creation Technology, focused on merchandising and analytics.

Tim Devlin is an experienced technologist and is the CEO and co-founder of Yellowjacket Technologies. He has a passion for digital product creation and likes working with companies to help figure out the best strategies and the right technology to unlock their digital value chains. Prior to founding Yellowjacket, Tim was leading the Global 3D practice for TPC and helped to open the Bridgetown Innovation Center in Portland Oregon where he also worked for Columbia Sportswear leading strategy for Digital Product Creation.

Passion for materials? Check. Design product development? Check. Visualization production for 15 years? Double check. Yazan Malkosh currently leads the team at swatchbook in creating a cloud platform meant to revolutionize the exploration, visualization and sharing of materials. His previous experience includes architecting product design tools for some of the worlds largest design brands in apparel, footwear and the automotive industries.

Ed Gribbin is founder and CEO of Gribbin Strategic LLC, a boutique consultancy focused on the apparel/fashion sector and offering services in the areas of growth strategy, business development, branding and marketing, product development and supply chain innovation, executive coaching and change management. Ed is widely recognized as one of the world’s leading authorities on the apparel industry and serves on numerous global boards dedicated to the success of the retail, apparel and textile sectors, including the American Apparel & Footwear Association, the International Apparel Federation, the Americas Apparel Producers Network and the Sewn Products Equipment Suppliers of the Americas. For the past seven years, Ed served as President of Alvanon, Inc., a leading innovation, technology and consulting firm serving major brands and retailers. Ed built and led Alvanon teams around the globe helping fashion industry clients develop and implement strategies and solutions in disciplines ranging from marketing and merchandising to product development and supply chain.

Jimmy Herdberg is the founder of Kokokaka, a creative studio and producers of digital haute couture. He discovered the world of programming when he was 12 years old and has since then been obsessed by the power of the digital world. Since the beginning of the 21st century Jimmy and his creative team have explored the world between digital and fashion for clients such as Wrangler, Prada, Burberry, Louis Vuitton and Dolce & Gabbana.

Mauro Rubin is currently the Italian Chapter President of VRARA (the VR/AR Association), CEO of JoinPad and AR Startup Mentor at Anthill Ventures. After realising his passion at the age of 11 when he developed his first program in "basic language", Mauro went on to first experience VR when teaching skydiving in the Italian Army. He went on to create JoinPad, one of the most advanced AR companies in the sector. At its core it develops and supports applications for the industrial sector and in 2011, they presented the world’s first AR wearable solution for industrial maintenance. Mauro is the first Smart Glasses Evangelist for Epson and is a frequent speaker at the Augmented Reality Expo, as well as at a number of Italian and international schools and universities.

Rickard Lindqvist is a fashion designer and researcher, and together with Jimmy Herdberg, runs the fashion studio Atacac. His research and designs propose new foundations, theories and methods for fashion design and cover blue sky research and applied projects. Rickard was originally trained as a men's tailor, in addition to studying fashion design at the Swedish School of Textiles from where he also holds a PhD in fashion design methodology. Between 2007 and 2011 he ran the eponymous Rickard Lindqvist fashion label. As a consultant he has served clients such as Vivienne Westwood, Nudie Jeans and Salomon.

With over 25 years of combined experience as an industrial designer and digital innovation leader, Safir has been able to leverage his strategic thinking and creative problem-solving skills to tackle a wide range of innovation challenges. Safir was an early adopter of 3D design and prototyping tools and carried his experience from the automotive world into the fashion and footwear industry. As Head of Innovation for the industry’s leading Action Sports brand, Vans, he oversaw a number of initiatives that spanned across product and experiences. In his most recent role, leading Digital Innovation for VF’s 20+ Apparel, Footwear, and Accessories brands, he was tasked with exploring the opportunities offered by digital tools and workflows and helped imagine the future of Product Creation and Brand Experiences. Safir currently chairs the 3DRC Educational Committee and teaches Design and Advanced Digital Creation while working on an educational project in Morocco, with a mission to bring opportunity in the Design and Innovation space to young creators on the African continent. An advocate of purposeful and responsible design, Safir believes that our society has an incredible opportunity to harness its collective creativity and today’s technological affordances to tackle the world’s social and humanitarian challenges.

Sandy is the Director of Apparel Innovation and 3D Digital Transformation at Target. Her role in Product Design and Development focuses on the application of 3D software and other emerging technologies to drive apparel development forward. She has over 20 years of experience leading apparel teams in technical design, product development, and sourcing. She is one of the founders of the 3D.RC, (3D Retail Coalition) a collaborative, industry wide group focused on providing direction, resources and networking opportunities to members to unlock and accelerate the value of 3D transformation.

Sergey Moliavko is the CEO of ShareCloth; the company provides complex cloud solutions for apparel on-demand retail and manufacturing. With  10 years of experience within fashion technology, Sergey bets on the potential of the apparel industry digital transformation for a better future.

In April 2018, Silvia joined as Account Manager of Unmade where she currently focuses on developing new business to drive growth and expand Unmade’s plethora of clients across the fashion, sportswear and lifestyle markets. Silvia graduated in Economics in Italy and started her early career working between Milan and London for different fashion houses. Silvia's interest in technology was born out of a role with London-based Farfetch; a global industry-leading fashion technology company, Silvia was part of the Farfetch commercial growth team, in charge of managing relationships with key retailers and brands, and developing forecasts in order to improve client profitability and performance.

Stefano is Senior Director of Global Innovation at Crocs and has extensive experience in B2B and B2C, casual and active footwear (Crocs, Nike) and consumer goods (Lego). With an impressive entrepreneurial spirit and a strong insight into the entire value chain, Stefano ran the family business for several years until it was later sold to Crocs. Stefano currently leads Crocs' Global Innovation department, managing three teams across the USA, Italy and China. The Global Innovation department is focused on innovative product technologies and processes, primarily serving the Product Creation and Supply Chain teams, but also Merchandising, E-Commerce, Sales and Marketing. Stefano is currently completing an Executive MBA in Innovation and Business Creation at the Technical University of Munich (TUM).

Tobias Rausch is responsible for the world-wide product and market management of X-Rite Pantone’s new Total Appearance Capture (TAC) technology. Rausch has been with X-Rite for 8 years and is based at X-Rite’s European Headquarters in Regensdorf, Switzerland. For the last 16 years he has been deeply involved in the development of color and appearance measurement solutions in different positions. He graduated in printing engineering at the Stuttgart Media University and holds a PhD from the University of Arts in London.

Vadim Kostomarov is Co-founder of Verisium, an innovative solution for fashion brands which uses NFC and Blockchain technology, aimed at customer engagement and product authentication. Prior to creating Verisium, Vadim worked at a major Russian fashion e-commerce shop Lamoda.Ru, where he led digital transformations in the field of omnichannel customer experience. Before that, he was an IT and Management consultant.

Giovanni Rojas is Senior Managing Director of PSQA for Target Corporation, leading their PSQA operations in China and SEA Regions. Giovanni’s scope of responsibility includes oversight and leadership of Product Safety and Quality Assurance to drive owned brands sales growth and bring Target’s product design visions to life delivering intended aesthetic, performance and safety expectations with great suppliers in environments that make us proud. Giovanni joined Target in 2003 and has been in this industry for 16 years. He has led major strategic corporate initiatives across North America, Latin America and Asia with abilities that extend across the product value chain on leadership positions for Product Safety & Quality Assurance and Strategic Global Sourcing.

Jo Anne heads the Global Quality Assurance Team for Under Armour Performance Brand based in Hong Kong and is responsible for production and post production quality for Footwear, Apparel & Accessories production. She has 25 years in building and sustaining Quality Assurance & Manufacturing Excellence Platforms for Apparel, Footwear and Accessories for major sportswear and lifestyle companies including Under Armour, Limited Brands, Hollister and Abercrombie & Fitch. Her leadership creates successful interfacing roles in Product Development, Manufacturing Operations, and Post Production/End Consumer Teams. Jo Anne is currently in her 25th year working for major brands and has a proven track record of delivering results for some of the most innovative companies in the world.

Kerry is the founder of The Fabricant, a digital fashion house leading the fashion industry towards a new sector of digital-only clothing. His education is in film and visual effects and he worked in the advertising industry for companies like Facebook, Nike, Asics, Under Armour, Playstation, Philips and many more for over a decade, before establishing The Fabricant full-time in 2018 following two-years of technical and business development.

Finland-born Kerry combines his technical 3D/VFX, creative direction and business skills to form the foundation of The Fabricant.

“I believe, to change the toxic environmental and cultural aspects of fashion we need to change the experience. Digital-only fashion provides many new opportunities to do so.”

Per Cromwell is a Swedish award winning designer/inventor/activist who in the recent years has co-founded several innovation companies, most notably, Wheelys Café. Currently he is the head designer for Moby Mart, a mobile retail solution. 

Pim is the Innovation Manager within the innovation platform of Fashion for Good. In this role he helps fashion brands redesign their value chain through scouting and scaling innovation. Prior to joining Fashion for Good, Pim has worked in the Management Consulting (Accenture), Fast Moving Consumer Goods (Unilever) and Private Equity Industry (Aurelius Invest) advising executive leadership teams how to best go from operations strategy to execution focusing on revenue enhancement and cost reduction.

With over 20 years of experience in the supply chain industry, Stéphane clearly understands the challenges involved in end-to-end manufacturing. The idea of developing Pivot88 came out of his own experience in the supply chain, and in particular on remote quality management and supply chain optimization. During his career, Stéphane held several executive positions at various companies including Toyota Industrial Group of Company, Deloitte Consulting and Ryder Logistics, and spent over 14 years working in China within Quality Management processes. Today with Pivot88 his focus is on helping companies overcome quality management challenges through the use of emergent technologies providing visibility into the most vulnerable and riskiest parts of the supply chain – within suppliers. Stéphane holds an MBA from UQAM University and is a certified professional logistician from the Canadian Logistics Institute.

With over 15 years under his belt designing apparel, footwear and accessories, Brendon Marczan is one of Foundry’s most experienced Product Designers. Brendon has worked across a number of industries, including fashion, sportswear, military, outdoor adventure, and luggage. He has a passion for developing sustainable sampling and manufacturing processes, and he’s worked with some of the world’s largest brands to introduce 3D visualisation into the workflow of traditionally 2D designers.

For seven years as Burberry’s VP IT Strategy, Architecture,  Relationships, Craig Crawford united C-level executives driving Burberry’s digital transformation internally and at retail.  As a creative with nearly 30 years experience in global fashion brands, Craig is often referred to as “the right brain of IT.” He makes decisions that change the face of Information Technology driving momentum and growth with improved business connectivity through digital  innovation for brands such as Hugo Boss, Jaeger, matchesfashion.com, Diane von Furstenberg, MaxMara, and Tory Burch. 

Craig chairs and presents at numerous fashion and retail tech events, where he connects global industry leaders and technology innovators. He advises fashion  tech startups in both the UK and US. His articles, videos, and webcasts appear on both sides of  the Atlantic. As a guest lecturer for various universities (Marangoni, ISDI, Condé Nast, UaL to name a few),  Craig brings industry relevance to the classroom ensuring tomorrow’s workforce is digitally prepared.

Craig enjoys being an Adviser for the charity Apps For Good where young people learn to  create and apply technology to change the world through a transformative education  program.