James Basnett
Live from Vancouver

James Basnett

CEO, Shape

James Basnett is the CEO of Shape, a leading metaverse studio and he has been building metaverse teams since 2016. Shape has built immersive experiences for Red Bull, Olympics and RTFKT (acquired by Nike).

Prior to Shape, James was the Chief Strategy Officer of Momentus, a retail innovation lab that was acquired and now a part of the Cognizant family where he built AR, VR and IoT products for Verizon, Lululemon, Reddit, and Shell. He has spoken on VR and blockchain at Sxsw, VRAR Global Summit and is a contributing writer for VR Scout. James is based in Vancouver, Canada.

Presentation Title:

How the Metaverse is Transforming Retail Brands”

The Metaverse is providing brands and retailers with the most exciting opportunity for transformation since ecommerce. It will shift brands to think of themselves as communities, their product mix as part physical, part digital and its sales as having a new channel leader. When Nike bought RTFKT they acquired not just a virtual fashion brand, but a new way of operating in the future and all other brands will have to follow. In this talk James will break down the pillars of metaverse in the world of retail brands and where they should start in building their next chapter at the intersection of decentralization and spatial computing.