Independent director and board advisor for retailers, consumer brands, and commerce companies.
Most boards have a finance expert, a legal mind, and a couple of former CEOs. What they usually don’t have is someone who has run e-commerce inside a retailer, advised the largest retailers and brands in the world on how digital is changing their business, and sat on the other side of the table as a public company director. That’s the seat I fill.
I’m Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis Groupe, a fourth-generation retailer, and a 30-year veteran of e-commerce who launched online retail at Blockbuster, Best Buy, and Target before most companies had a website. I currently serve as an independent director of a publicly traded global retailer and as a strategic advisor to a private equity firm investing in commerce, and I have chaired the board of the industry’s leading digital retail association. I’m open to one or two additional board seats where my background fits.
Board Experience
Vaibhav Global Limited (VGL)
Independent Non-Executive Director, September 2023 to present. VGL is a publicly traded, vertically integrated retailer approaching $1 billion in revenue. It operates the Shop LC and TJC television and online shopping brands in the U.S., U.K., and Germany, with manufacturing and sourcing in Jaipur, India, and a growing digital and marketplace business. The board meets quarterly in India, with semi-annual management committee sessions at the company’s major locations around the world. I bring the outside view on digital commerce, U.S. and European consumer trends, and the shift from broadcast to streaming and social discovery.
NewRoad Capital Partners
Strategic Advisor, April 2026 to present. NewRoad is a private equity firm that invests in companies redefining retail, commerce, and logistics. I joined its strategic advisor team in April 2026 to help the firm evaluate new deals and investment opportunities, and to serve as an advisor to its portfolio companies. It’s the investor’s side of the table: reading a business plan for what will actually work in the market, pressure-testing a management team’s digital assumptions, and then helping the companies NewRoad backs execute.
Backcountry.com
Advisory Board, September 2017 to 2020. Appointed by TSG Consumer Partners, the private equity owner of Backcountry, and CEO Jonathan Nielsen to advise on e-commerce strategy and growth during the company’s expansion. Backcountry is one of the largest specialty online retailers of outdoor gear, and the engagement covered site experience, customer acquisition, owned brands, and the economics of a category-leading DTC retailer.
Shop.org
Board of Directors, 2013 to 2016. Chairman of the Board, 2014. Shop.org was the digital retail division of the National Retail Federation and the industry’s primary association for e-commerce executives. I was elected to the board in June 2013 and elected chairman the following year, leading the organization through the period when e-commerce moved from a side business to the center of every retailer’s strategy. Shop.org was fully absorbed into NRF in 2016. I subsequently served on NRF’s Digital Advisory Board.
Client Boardrooms
Ongoing, through Publicis Groupe. As Chief Commerce Strategy Officer, I regularly present to the boards of directors of Publicis clients, which include many of the largest retailers and consumer brands in the world, on the topics their boards are asking about: agentic commerce and AI, retail media, marketplaces, social and creator commerce, and the changing economics of wholesale. I know what a board wants from a subject-matter presentation, and what it doesn’t.
What I Bring to a Board
- Operator credibility on digital. I’ve built and run e-commerce businesses inside large retailers, not just advised on them. When management presents a digital plan, I know which questions to ask and which numbers to check.
- A current view of where commerce is going. My day job is advising the biggest companies in the industry on what’s next: AI and agentic shopping, retail media, marketplaces, creator-driven discovery. A board gets that perspective without paying consulting rates for it.
- Pattern recognition across hundreds of companies. Thirty years and hundreds of retail and brand clients means I have usually seen the problem before, and I’ve seen what worked and what didn’t.
- Plain-English translation. I write for Forbes, co-host a long-running podcast, and give keynotes to rooms full of executives. I can explain a technical shift to a board in ten minutes and tell them what it means for the business, without the jargon.
- Public company experience, including outside the U.S. Serving on the board of a company listed in India, with operations across three countries, has taught me governance in a different regulatory system and how to be useful to a management team eight time zones away.
- A network that opens doors. Decades in the industry, a large practitioner following, and relationships with retail and brand leaders that help a portfolio company find a customer, a partner, or an executive.
- Independence. I’ll tell a board what I think, including when it’s not what management wants to hear. The industry knows me as someone who is skeptical of vendor statistics and hype cycles, and that skepticism is worth more in a boardroom than anywhere else.
Where I Fit
I’m most useful to companies where digital commerce is central to the strategy or should be: retailers going through digital transformation, consumer brands rethinking wholesale and direct, commerce technology companies that need a customer’s perspective, and private equity portfolio companies in retail, consumer, and logistics, where I already do this work for NewRoad. Public or private, U.S. or international. I’m less useful, and will say so, on boards where the questions are mainly financial engineering.
Two practical notes. My Publicis role means any board appointment goes through a conflict check and clearance first, and I take that seriously. And I limit myself to a small number of seats so I can show up prepared for every meeting rather than nominally present at many.
Get in Touch
If you’re a nominating committee, a search firm, a private equity sponsor, or a founder who thinks I’d be useful on your board, send me a note with the company and what the board is trying to solve. I respond to every serious inquiry.
Email | LinkedIn
