Vera Maia

Vera Maia is the CEO of BrightStore, the e-commerce arm of Portugal's Bright Group, where she leads the development of Buddy, an AI-powered sales and customer care agent for online retailers. With close to two decades of experience spanning strategy to operations and startups to scale, she has worked across hundreds of ecommerce projects in Portugal and internationally. In 2015, she founded Tudo Sobre eCommerce, a consultancy, conference and podcast built to raise the standard of the Portuguese ecommerce market, and has since produced over a decade of educational content, including the weekly podcast "Ecommerce à Quarta" (80+ episodes) and a newsletter on AI in ecommerce. She is also the author of two books: E-commerce para Gestores (now in its 2nd edition) and Os 110 Erros que Prejudicam o seu Negócio de Ecommerce. Beyond BrightStore, she previously led Shaeco, a sustainable cosmetics company, as CEO, and teaches at Universidade Católica and Universidade do Minho.