Yasir Anwar

CTO & CDO
Williams-Sonoma, Inc.

Yasir Anwar is the Chief Technology Officer & Chief Digital Officer at Williams-Sonoma, Inc. since February 2018. In this role, Yasir leads all technology aspects of the company’s digital experience, retail stores, and supply chain. He also oversees Outward, Inc., a 3-D imaging and augmented reality platform that the company acquired at the end of 2017.

Yasir is an innovation enthusiast who is a technologist at heart and an entrepreneur at execution, shaping the strategic technical direction for the company and transforming technology for the next generation retail. He considers himself on a D.I.E.T (Disruption; Innovation; Execution; Technology Excellence). To keep the balance between solving technical issues and shaping an overarching strategy, he strives to switch roles between being an engineer, architect, and C-Level Executive as needed. He believes this keeps himself humble, realistic and truly connected with his teams.

Prior to joining Williams-Sonoma, Inc., Yasir has led various organizations through major transformations—building platforms and capabilities, and re-engineering large and legacy systems, through a culture focused on customer experience, innovation, experimentation, and agility. Yasir most recently served as Chief Technology Officer at Macy’s, where he had also held various leadership roles in digital technology and engineering. Prior to joining Macy’s, he served as the head of platform engineering at Walmart Labs. Previously, Yasir was the head of engineering for Samsclub.com and led architecture for Walmart.com.

Yasir currently serves on the Board of Directors for FULLBEAUTY Brands. Yasir also serves on the IBM Board of Advisors.

Check out the incredible speaker line-up to see who will be joining Yasir.

Download The Latest Agenda

Day 1: eCommerce And Omnichannel Growth Drivers

Tuesday, February 25th, 2020

8:15 AM Keynote Fireside Chat: Turning Williams-Sonoma, Inc. From Traditional Retail To Tech Retail

Yasir Anwar believes two types of companies are going to survive and thrive in the upcoming decade: companies whose business is tech or companies where tech is how they do their business. A lot of cultural shifts and transformation needs to take place to effectively put tech at the forefront of all decision-making right behind the customer. Listen in as Yasir lays out the Williams-Sonoma, Inc. innovation story, where more than 55% of the company’s sales are online.

How Williams-Sonoma, Inc. is becoming a tech retail company, building their own experimentation platform
WSI’s acquisition of Outward, Inc. – a 3D visualization platform – to further strengthen its retail leadership
Technology that WSI harnesses, like AI, ML, visualization, and omni shipping logistics
What’s next in sustainability and the challenges it presents for manufacturing and supply chain