Andy Ruben

CEO, Founder, Board Chair, Advisor, and Lead Independent Director with 30+ years of experience in retail, consumer brands, and AI-driven commerce.

  • Andy brings valuable hands-on experience running scaled businesses. As CEO of Clarity, an AI company solving retail's fraud problem, and through his board and advisory work, Andy offers practical, actionable strategies and insights to boards, corporations, institutions and associations.

    He is committed to finding more ways to provide better lives to more people via speaking, advising, mentoring, writing and participating on the boards of companies that share his vision to create consequential change.

  • "Andy is a remarkable entrepreneur and executive. He sees around corners and brings an unbelievable passion to everything he does. Any Board, start-up or company would be lucky to have his incredible talent on their roster."

    — Shelley Bransten, Microsoft Corporate Vice President

  • "Andy is a visionary leader. Unmatched in his ability to galvanize a team, an auditorium or a stadium. Andy has an uncanny ability to articulate ideas, big or small, in ways that are energizing, yet digestible and actionable. "

    — Peter Whitcomb, Tersus Solutions CEO

  • "Andy is simply the most innovative and creative strategic visionary I have had the privilege to know."

    — Paul Tepfenhart, Google Global Retail Director

  • "Andy is able to balance profit with principles in a unique way and has a proven track record of bringing innovations to market that benefit the customer, company and the world we live in."

    — Marc Rosen, JCPenney CEO

  • "Andy is that rare combination of vision, culture and delivery. Insight, bold candor and tenacity. He’s an entrepreneur’s entrepreneur."

    — Lisa Gansky, Entrepreneur & Author

Speaker

Andy has had the privilege of speaking at prestigious conferences around the world, from COP28 in Dubai to the World Retail Congress in Barcelona.

He speaks on topics including AI-Driven Commerce, Tech + Retail, and Circular Economy to a broad range of audiences including small groups of executives, large industry conferences, associations, organizations and institutions.

HIGHLIGHTS OF RECENT ENGAGEMENTS

  • Circularity Keynote, Denver, 2025

  • Groundbreakers, London, 2024

  • McKinsey Green Business, San Francisco, 2024

  • Global Fashion Agenda, Boston, 2023

  • COP28, Dubai, 2023

  • World Retail Congress, Barcelona, 2023

    + see more

“He can very nimbly navigate so many topics and share wonderful insights both like an emotive storyteller – drawing in his audience with wonder and curiosity – and a thoughtful sage – relying on his breadth and depth of knowledge. Andy always makes me walk away wiser.”
— Scott W. Hessell, The Terry J. Lundgren Center for Retailing
Learn more

TED Long Beach, 2010

Advisor

Andy's approach is hands-on and focused on delivering actionable results. With years of real-world experience, he helps teams cut through the noise, identify core issues, and develop a clear and actionable strategy. Andy serves as a Senior Advisor to Boston Consulting Group (BCG), where he advises retail and consumer companies on AI-driven commerce and growth strategy. He has led workshops for boards of directors, banks, institutions, venture and private equity firms, and industry associations, and has been featured in a Stanford Graduate Business School case study.

RECENT EXPERIENCE

Executive Teams

  • Blackstone Asia Portfolio

  • Coles Group Executives

  • Nordstrom Annual Leadership Meeting

  • Wellington Private Equity Annual Meeting

Conferences & Workshops

  • Aspen Climate

  • NRF Circularity

  • Deloitte Partner Conference

  • Outdoor CEO Summit

  • Jewelers Mutual Summit

Entrepreneurs & Students

  • Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) for Earthshot Ventures

  • Kellogg’s Green Week

  • Guest lecturer at Stanford, UC Berkeley, OSU, Buffalo, UVA, Arizona

  • “ Andy is one of the most insightful strategists in the business. He sees the future of business. He listens carefully to the needs of every client, facilitates productive conversations with internal and external stakeholders, creates a meaningful strategy and maps the short-and long-term implementation goals and metrics. ”
    — Scot Case, National Retail Federation
  • “ Andy is an inspirational force of nature. He is one of the most dynamic, high energy, positive, smart people I have ever had the pleasure of working with. ”
    — Rob Webb, CMO
  • “ Many people have the “smarts” to understand challenging situations…. Andy has the smarts coupled with the ability to drive teams to deliver positive outcomes, partly because he has done it for himself in his own company. This ability makes him uniquely suited to serve as an advisor or as a Board member. ”
    — Justin Shaw, CDPQ
  • “ Andy has built an incredibly unique set of business muscles-from leading strategy at one of the largest companies in the world, to taking an idea through Series E and enduring all the heartache and thrill of founding a world-changing business. ”
    — Peter Whitcomb, CEO Tersus Solutions

Board Member

Andy brings two decades of boardroom experience, as corporate liaison to Walmart (WMT) board committees, lead independent director of Zevia (ZVIA), director of FortNine, a PE-backed powersports e-commerce company, and director of Goodwill Industries International.

Operating experience as a CEO as well as a broad range of executive roles, including marketing and ecommerce, plus a track record of pioneering industry change, provide a uniquely valuable perspective in board service.

  • “ Andy has been a critical addition to our Board and a constant source of stability and support for me in the CEO role. His strategic planning capabilities, his breakthrough thinking and his rare combination of EQ and IQ make him a truly unique contributor. ”
    — Amy Taylor, CEO Zevia
  • “ Andy has the ability to make you rethink and redefine what’s possible, how it’s profitable and how to get there. ”
    — Scot Case, NRF
  • “ Andy possesses the rare ability to apply his ridiculously high raw intelligence and channel those smarts to drive impact at the world's largest company (Walmart) and as a founder. It is so hard to find executives / leaders that have that kind of range. ”
    — Mike Smith, Footwork VC
  • “ Andy joined me on the Board of Directors of a private equity-backed company that later executed a successful IPO. He has provided solid, thoughtful advice (grounded from his own experiences in the trenches) to the management team and fellow board members. ”
    — Justin Shaw, CDPQ
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Andy Ruben, retail strategy advisor and Clarity CEO, consulting with an executive at an industry conference on AI-driven commerce and retail transformation.