Maria McClay has been working in the intersection of fashion, retail and technology for over 20 years as an operator, technologist, investor and advisor. She has a strong passion and track record for developing and growing high performing teams alongside sustainability where she led Google’s fashion moonshot to help brands source more sustainabily. Her thought leadership around fashion sustainability has been recognized in leading publications such as Vogue and industry events including the World Expo, Davos, the Copenhagen Fashion Summit, British Fashion Week and the World Retail Congress.
Maria is currently partnering with and investing in disruptive, aspirational, mission-driven consumer brands and founders to reach and expand their financial and impact objectives. Previously, she was a director at Google Cloud, working with Fashion & Beauty companies to help anticipate industry trends and use cutting-edge technology to get ahead of customer expectations and drive profitable growth. Some focus areas included using artificial intelligence to achieve hyperpersonalization, to create sustainable, resilient supply chains and to redesign the store of the future among helping solve other operational challenges. Before joining Google, she spent nearly a decade at Gucci holding various senior operational and strategic roles, including General Manager of Northern Europe and Associate Vice President of Retail for Europe. She began her career at McKinsey across New York, San Francisco and Mexico City, and covered the Luxury Goods and Retail sectors in the European Consumer/Retail Investment Banking team at Lehman Brothers.
Maria graduated with honors from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Business School.