Agenda

Welcome to The CEO Experience! Kick off the event with a brief welcome from our President and Co-Founder Jennifer DiPasquale, who will provide an overview of the day’s schedule. Plus, get to know each other with a fun round of introductions! Each participant will have the opportunity to introduce themselves to the group to help us all connect. This is a great way to highlight the impressive leaders in the room, setting the stage for meaningful connections throughout the event.

Join Lynn Martin, president of the New York Stock Exchange, for a fireside chat on leadership, innovation and resilience. As one of the most influential women in global finance, Lynn will share lessons from leading the world’s largest stock exchange through times of transformation and disruption. She’ll discuss how to navigate uncertainty, build trust, and create opportunities in evolving markets — all while championing diversity, inclusion, and the next generation of leaders.

Shopify didn’t become AI-native by accident. It took a memo from our CEO that made AI usage a baseline expectation, access to every major AI model, and a culture that celebrates experimentation. In this session, I’ll share the principles that drove Shopify’s internal AI transformation and how enterprise retail brands are applying them today. You’ll hear how brands like Away, Glossier, and SKIMS are already showing up in AI-powered shopping conversations simply by being on Shopify, and how tools like Sidekick are helping marketing teams move from idea to execution in seconds instead of weeks. Whether your team is AI-curious or AI-skeptical, you’ll walk away with a framework for starting the conversation and exploring point solutions that deliver value now.

Retail CEOs are making difficult decisions — navigating tariffs, layoffs, AI disruption, eroding consumer and employee trust — all while keeping their teams motivated and their companies growing. This off-the-record discussion will bring together top leaders for an honest exchange about the emotional, strategic and operational challenges of modern leadership. How do you lead with confidence when the future is so uncertain? This isn’t about perfection; it’s about resilience, transparency, and redefining leadership in the face of relentless change.

Join us for an engaging and interactive session where we’ll tackle the most pressing challenges facing retail leaders today. Participants will have the opportunity to share their top professional challenge, which will be compiled and analyzed for common themes. Our moderator will then lead a dynamic discussion around three key topics based on those shared challenges. This collaborative forum will provide valuable insights, peer-to-peer learning, and practical takeaways as we explore solutions to the issues that matter most to you.

In an era when brand loyalty is earned in milliseconds, the distinction between a transaction and an experience has never been more critical. Join Nadia Qureshi, global head of partnerships at Adyen, to learn how Adyen’s single platform architecture eliminates friction and empowers brands to scale without compromise. Nadia will dive into the future of agentic commerce, the power of a unified partnership ecosystem, and how Adyen’s newly launched Protect & Personalize suite allows retailers to safeguard their brand reputation while delivering the bespoke, high-touch experiences today’s consumers demand.

As capital markets shift and investor expectations evolve, retail CEOs must understand not only how to build exceptional brands, but also how investors value companies — looking at revenue multiples, EBITDA, growth trajectory, and retail-specific drivers such as customer acquisition costs, retention, and omnichannel performance. Equally important is the ability to clearly articulate growth, profitability, and long-term potential. This candid conversation will provide retail leaders with insights around how to better position their companies in the eyes of capital partners as well as to ask smarter questions of their own.