Retail Innovator of the Year – Gianna Venturi

Gianna Venturi, Chief People Officer at Eyemart Express wins a 2019 Retail Innovator Award. The Retail Innovator Award program is recognizing retail executives who are focused on driving change and positive disruption using innovative strategies and technologies.

Gianna joined Eyemart Express in 2016 and set out to answer the question: How do you scale employee training across multiple stores at an accelerated pace, to ensure everyone has the information required to drive profitability and growth? In 2018, the company implemented Axonify, an AI-powered adaptive microlearning platform, across 1,800 users in a variety of roles. Eyemart put in place a thoughtful launch strategy that included executive sponsorship, a cross-functional support team and phased rollout. The initial rollout included four districts (10-15 stores per district). By modernizing its approach to corporate training with an AI-powered adaptive microlearning platform, Eyemart has reduced onboarding time from 35 days to 10 days, which has lowered the labor cost of ramping a new employee down to only $1,300 on average. That’s a savings of approximately $1,500 per employee.