Kamales Lardi

AI won't fix your organizations. It will scale the weaknesses.

I have spent more than 26 years in the technology industry, working across complex systems, large-scale platforms, and global organizations. Across industries and regions, one pattern is consistent: transformation efforts fail not because of technology, but because decision-making structures, governance models, and human behavior are not designed for change at scale.

In the AI age, this gap has become a material business risk. AI amplifies bias in systems, accelerates poor decisions, and exposes fragile leadership and operating models. What many organizations frame as an “AI challenge” is, in reality, a decision quality, governance, and organizational resilience problem.

My work focuses on neuroscience-driven transformation - applying evidence-based insights on how humans think, decide, respond to risk, and collaborate under uncertainty. Neuroscience is not a soft discipline; it is a performance lens. Organizations that understand attention, motivation, fear, and cognitive bias build better systems, make better decisions, and execute transformation more effectively.

Since founding Lardi & Partner Consulting in 2012, I have led more than 50 major transformation initiatives worldwide, including strategic programs for governments and Fortune 500 organizations. My experience spans multiple industries and exponential technologies, including artifiticial intelligence, blockchain, IoT, AR, VR and emerging digital architectures; always with a focus on measurable outcomes and long-term enterprise value.

I am the author of Artificial Intelligence for Business, a comprehensive guide to AI and its practical application in organizations, as well as the bestselling The Human Side of Digital Business Transformation. Both reflect my focus on translating complex technologies into strategic, operational, and governance decisions that deliver real business impact.

I am a recognized global voice on digital transformation and leadership, with my perspective grounded in execution, not theory, and shaped by decades of working where technology, power, and organizational reality intersect.

I work with senior leaders and boards who want to strengthen decision-making, reduce systemic risk, and build organizations that are resilient, adaptive, and fit for the AI era.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Lardi & Partner Consulting GmbH is an experienced partner in digital business transformation. We enable organizations to transform traditional customer experiences, business models and, processes and operations to meet the needs of the digital economy. Based on practical experience, we help companies drive digital transformation initiatives, from strategy to execution. We also develop robust business use cases, proof of concepts and integration plan for technology application - blockchain, artificial intelligence, AR/VR, internet of things, 3D printing, robotics, sensor / wearables, social media among others.

Yotpo

Yotpo is a retention marketing platform with solutions for SMS, email, loyalty, reviews, subscriptions, and visual UGC — helping brands turn one-time shoppers into customers for life.

Partnerships Manager

SHOPLINE EMEA

SHOPLINE is Asia's biggest smart commerce platform that empowers merchants to succeed everywhere. We provide a full-featured platform that allows merchants to easily build their online shop and deliver a seamlessly omni-channel experience.

Partnership Manager

Ranieri

Business Development Manager

Westcoast Limited

Grew and managed a £22 million P&L at 10%+ margin from £0.
Categories that I manage range from VR, AR, Smart Home, Mobile Toys, Homewares, Outdoor, Jewellery and Nutrient.
Managed demand forecasting from customers and help vendors plan their inventory more efficient.
Manage all vendor contracts from start to finish. 
Lead on 3rd part logistics for the company.
The lead on creating Westcoast Fulfilment services (GWP/Redemption website).
Created the VR/AR end to end solution with varies partnership for the B2B sector.
Manage onboarding of new customers e.g contracts, initial meetings, support my vendors etc..
Attended and graduated empowering leadership course.

Product Manager Emerging Markets

John Lewis

Buying Assistant Living & Dining

The next area I moved to was cookware. This has given me the opportunity to work with big brands such as Le Creuset & Teal and also use my skills of own brand to really dial up our own brand cookware, which takes a huge amount of our overall sales. I worked with several stakeholders create marketing plans of new brand launches to make sure we had enough coverage with above the line marketing and interaction on social media. This was challenging as we had to really fight the space against our electrical buying office who had a lot more money to spend, so we had to be wise and clever on they way we were using our marketing budgets. Working in this office has also given me the ability to fine tune my buying skills by buying chopping boards and kitchen scales, which were completely different to what I was used to. Chopping boards is mainly own brand with abit of brand from Joseph Joseph who is bought by several offices, so I had to make sure when making decisions that all parties involved were lines up to maximise margin opportunities. The other area kitchen scales was a really new and interesting area to buy because of the current market of scales and the decline. This was more or managing the decline and making sure within my assortment each options was working hard and to remove the options, which were holding up our money to back the best sellers.

Buying Assistant Cookshop

I moved to the Cookshop Buying Office to challenge myself, build on skills I have already learnt and to learn new ways to buy. I am responsible for buying Picnicware, Barware, Wine Racks and John Lewis Own Brand Collections. I have been able to take the skills I have learnt from my previous office, which was heavily branded and I have used these skills to building relationships with our branded picnicware and especially our branded barware suppliers by negotiating on commercial cost prices and to make sure they are signed up to our standard terms and conditions. Compared to the world of electrical the branded suppliers in the barware market are a lot smaller, but by no means insignificant as the profit margin is a lot higher. The main reason for the change of Buying Offices was to learn own brand buying and picnicware was a very good opportunity to learn this. The skills I have learnt is how to buy in seasons, competition shopping, market research, trends, managing stake holders internally including design studio, own brand packaging and online. Picnicware is a very challenging area to buy as there is only 21 week window to sale through, so management of minimal order quantities, price, five star launches online & instores and especially shipment dates. These are all very important so we sale through stock and avoid stock going in to mark down. As this is own brand I have to deal with a lot of overseas suppliers, so has been a good learn to negotiate cost prices, quantities and split shipments. This involved working very closely with my merchandise counter part to make sure that we were aligned in all our buying decisions, so they are profitable and commercial. 
I have also been given and exciting opportunity to work on our premium John Lewis Croft collections, which is a business wide initiative and key times of the year this collection is bought together from all buying office in a pop up shop to create awareness on our great value and quality of our brand.

Buying Assistant Barware/Picnic/Gifting

I started my buying career in Audio and Gaming where I picked up the Buying Assistant  role very quickly. I have been very lucky to be working closely with the Buyer for Audio & Imaging, growing and launching our own brand Audio range, which has been a huge success and will continue to do well for us. I have also been given many projects from the Assistant Buyer to see what sort of business mind I have. One of the projects was to do research in potential range in outdoor speakers. This entailed looking at competitors and seeing if there was a gap in the market to launch them. The process involved me doing several comp shops and talking to our current suppliers to see if they had any products that I could fit into our range. I came across a speaker that was recently launched in America, which was very interesting. I manage to contact the company and organise a conference call to talk more about the product and to get a background to the company. This led to a very productive call, they are very interested in doing business with John Lewis and I have managed to organise a meeting at Victoria, which I led to see their marketing plan to promote their product in the UK and how we can attract customers in to purchasing their product over bigger brands in the market.

Buying Administrator Audio and Gaming

As a ‘Sales Assistant’ on ‘Christmas Shop’ and ‘Menswear’ I know about the urgency of keeping the best standards on the shop floor so customers can clearly see what they are purchasing and to make it presentable. I am very confident in approaching, building a relationship and closing a sale to a customer. What I learnt was the process from engaging customers to closing a sale, which I thoroughly enjoyed and achieved success. During this time I received many customer appreciations and won a partnership award for selling the partnership card to customers. During this time I became experienced in dealing with queries over the telephone, ensuring that the customer could purchase the merchandise they sought, resolving any complaints as well as any concerns about the product. The new skills I learnt enabled me to qualify for the ‘aspire to be’ management scheme where I broadened and enhanced my skills to lead and develop other partners.

Sales Assistant

I joined John Lewis in October 2011 in stock management. Where I quickly got recognised for my strong leadership and commercial awareness. I was given the position as team leader to improve the ways of working, to build a strong relationship with the shop floor and to make sure everyone in my team was up to date on system, which were crucial in enabling us to do our jobs effectively and efficiently.

Stock Management

Experienced Product Manager with a demonstrated history of working and growing several markets ranging from tech to homwares. Skilled in Trend Analysis, Negotiation, Category managements,
Coaching, and Sales. Strong product management with 6 years experience in the industry. 

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Kamales Lardi

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