Forbes contributor and MarketScale “What Just Happened” podcast host Christine Russo will be giving her invaluable industry insights on the finalists of the Lightning 50 competition, which ranks the fastest growing e-commerce brands over the past 12 months.
With years of experience in the retail space, working both in-house for retail brands such as J. Crew and Kenneth Cole; in academia as a graduate professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology, and finally as a retail consultant for her own agency, Russo is well-versed in both the retail and e-commerce spaces.
She will be reviewing and commenting on the Lightning 50 finalists and examining the factors that may have attributed to their success as well as the current state of e-commerce.
“It has been a non-traditional year for e-commerce, with challenges such as supply chain delays, inflation and a cost-of-living crisis, so acknowledging success in this space despite these challenges is particularly important right now. E-commerce businesses should capitalize on the opportunity for this recognition by entering Brightpearl’s Lightning 50 competition,” said Russo.
The Lightning 50 is a concept from Brightpearl, a retail operating system based in Austin, TX. The company works with thousands of merchants across the globe, providing them with innovative business intelligence solutions and retail automation so they can grow fearlessly.
To recognize the success of up-and-coming e-commerce businesses, Brightpearl has launched their inaugural Lightning 50 competition in the US, following the success of the program in the UK last year.
“We want to use the Lightning 50 to both celebrate and shine a light on some of the incredible work online firms have been doing throughout the pandemic and despite all the numerous challenges they have faced in the last few years,” said Brightpearl CMO, Sara Arthrell. “The Lightning 50 only considers one metric when scoring businesses – growth. We encourage any high growth brand to enter so they can get the recognition they deserve.”
Sara added: “We are delighted to be partnering with Christine on the Lightning 50 initiative; her expertise will be invaluable to uncovering the common factors which are powering e-commerce growth over the past year.”
To enter Brightpearl’s Lightning 50, visit brightpearl.com/lightning-50 and submit your application by August 12, 2022. To be eligible, businesses must have annual turnovers between $1M–250M and submit two full years of revenue data for 2020 and 2021. Entering the Lightning 50 is free of charge.
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