New H&M board member has crucial AI and robotics background

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Mar 6, 2019

H&M’s latest board appointment underscores the importance of digital to mass-market fashion retailers with the company proposing Danica Kragic Jensfelt to be elected at its annual general meeting on May 7.

She’s a professor of computer science from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for contributions to vision-based systems and robotic object manipulation. 

Stefan Persson, company chairman and father of H&M’s CEO Karl-Johan Persson, hailed her “unique expertise within computer science and AI and how this can be used in robotisation, logistics and recycling as well as within fashion and the shopping experience.”

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He added: “In view of the great transition that is taking place in fashion retail as a result of increasing digitalisation, Danica’s knowledge will be very valuable to the H&M group in the time ahead.”

The 47-year-old Croatian-born scientist is also a member of the boards of FAM, a Wallenberg family foundation, SAAB and the Institute for Future Studies. 

Her involvement with H&M comes as fashion retailers increasingly use artificial intelligence in their customer services and supply chain operations with robotics, augmented reality and virtual reality also making an ever-larger impact on stores, websites and back office ops. 

And it’s interesting that the company also cited recycling as an area in which her expertise could be applied as fast fashion firms find themselves under increasing pressure to lessen the environmental impact of their products.