Lori Rhodes

Lori brings a wealth of marketing and communications leadership experience garnered at some of the most iconic retail brands in North American and the Middle East including Cartier, Saks Fifth Avenue, Hudson’s Bay Company, Bloomingdale’s Middle East, Harvey Nichols Dubai, and Ounass.com

Beginning her retail career in New York City at Cartier, Lori experienced first-hand the importance of heritage, craftsmanship, and storytelling in luxury brand positioning. Her next retail position was at Saks Fifth Avenue where she spent nearly 10 years in roles of increasing responsibility, leaving in 2003 as Vice President, Media Relations and Special Events. While there, she was a key member of the team responsible for many of Saks’ most renowned platforms such as Key to the Cure. She handled communication strategies for both the market at large as well as consumers while ensuring that Saks stayed culturally relevant with entertainment industry partnerships. After a brief stint as Executive Marketing Director at Hearst’s SHOP Etc. magazine, she rejoined colleagues from Saks at Lividini & Co., where she was named Partner and Managing Director.

In 2015, Lori moved to Dubai to join Al Tayer Group as its prestigious retail division’s first Head of Marketing. She led that company’s Department Store, Luxury, Beauty, Lifestyle, and Hospitality’s marketing, public relations, special events, social media, creative, and visual merchandising teams. While there, she launched the Middle East’s first fashion, home, and beauty ecommerce site, Ounass.com; launched Bloomingdale’s Kuwait; and won numerous awards for conceiving some of the region’s first influencer-led brand content.

Since 2018, she has worked with many clients in the region, including The Dubai Mall, where she created exciting customer engagement strategies for Fashion Avenue; serves as a marketing advisor to one of the region’s most influential cyber-security and artificial intelligence specialists; developed a new international retail concept in Saudi Arabia; and is co-founder of a holistic wellness and beauty app currently in development.

Lori graduated from Vassar College and enjoys traveling the world seeking new adventures.