Alex Sbardella Profile Picture

Keynote SpeakerAlex Sbardella

Retail Technology Expert

Alex Sbardella is a transport technology, consumer, and experience expert. He specialises in making complex trends and technologies relatable for any audience, with his knowledgeable but laid-back style inspiring audiences around the world about the future of society, transport, customer experience, and business. Currently the Head of Product at leading... Read More

Biography

Alex Sbardella is a transport technology, consumer, and experience expert. He specialises in making complex trends and technologies relatable for any audience, with his knowledgeable but laid-back style inspiring audiences around the world about the future of society, transport, customer experience, and business. Currently the Head of Product at leading transport management provider Unicard, he works with local authorities and transport operators around the UK to build the future of mobility, from smart ticketing to mobility-as-aservice and beyond.

He was formerly the Senior Vice President at global trend forecasting and consulting practice GDR Creative Intelligence, where he consulted on innovation, digital transformation, CX and futurology for household names worldwide, helping some of the world’s largest and most innovative companies turn insights into strategies. He was also the Consultancy Director at leading UK technology firm Red Ant, designing and delivering award-winning solutions, innovation and strategy from boardrooms to stockrooms across the globe. Before that, he founded an app development agency in the early days of the iPhone. A guest lecturer at Birmingham City University, he regularly authors articles for both the national and specialist press, and occasionally serves as a guest expert for the BBC. He founded the Connected Retail Index, a technology scorecard for over 200 businesses, has designed applications with millions of monthly active users, and led the team that won the inaugural IBM Watson Global Developer Challenge for applied artificial intelligence. He has a degree in Psychology from Warwick University, where he specialised in user experience, user behaviour, sociobiology and applied neuroscience.

"Following discussion with Alex he had clearly prepared his talk to deliver against our brief. Alex was engaging, friendly and knowledgeable and provided many relevant, thought provoking and interesting examples for the audience. Good feedback was received across the board, and it is a testament to Alex’s delivery that he engaged the audience so well after a long day of talks." Events Team, Unilever
“GDR has provided fantastic content at many of our conferences for a decade. Over the past year, we’ve been lucky enough to have Alex present for us and he was excellent. His in-depth understanding, coupled with a blend of enthusiasm and a laid-back delivery style, has attracted some of the highest audience feedback scores I’ve seen in organising nearly 100 events at POPAI” Phil Day, Director, POPAI UK & Ireland
“Fascinating - very insightful. Alex was a very interesting speaker who brought the topic to life whilst also putting it into perspective for our industry. Always nice to see the future!” Audience Feedback
“Wow Alex. Just wow. I loved your presentation.” Susan Reda, Event Editor, National Retail Federation
“A massive THANK YOU! For your presentation on Monday. The teams all cited this as a highlight of the summit, and a great eye-opener for some of the innovation happening throughout the industry.” Dana Gers, Global Director of Marketing & Communications, Yoox Net-a-Porter
“Thank you so much for yesterday, it was absolutely spot on for the audience. Many of the CMOs commented on how good the presentation was.” Clare Willetts, Group Brand Manager, Virgin
“We absolutely loved having you with us. You were a total star and it was super comforting to know that all speakers were just guaranteed brilliant!! We have done the event analysis. As you can see your scores are super impressive. So thank you very much indeed.” “We absolutely loved having you with us. You were a total star and it was super comforting to know that all speakers were just guaranteed brilliant!! We have done the event analysis. As you can see your scores are super impressive. So thank you very much indeed.”

Popular Talks by Alex Sbardella

  • Mobility-as-a-Service
  • Future Transport
  • Smart Ticketing
  • Smart Cities
  • Service Design
  • Passenger Experience
  • Commercial Strategy
  • Innovation Strategy
  • Apps & Mobile
  • Consumer Psychology
  • Consumer Trends
  • Emerging Technologies
  • Digital Media
  • Startups & Disruption