DigitalBits Augments its Advisory Board With Cisco, Walmart Vets

March 30, 2018         By: Steven Anderson

A little over a week ago, DigitalBits filled us in on the existence of its use of decentralized blockchain in augmenting loyalty programs, giving more businesses a shot at putting these valuable customer experience-enhancing tools to work. Now, it tipped us off about another new change in its operations, as it looked to bring in new blood to its advisory board, a pair of industry veterans.

The first such veteran was Julie Lyle, former chief marketing officer of Walmart and current interim CMO for Barnes & Noble. She’s got over 20 years of retail and marketing experience to her credit, and has been working on revenue-driving efforts like rebranding, marketing planning and improving the online / offline customer experience, a point Barnes & Noble could definitely use in the face of its ongoing struggles with Amazon.

The second, meanwhile, was David Holland, who has spent the last 15 years with Cisco. Previously, he was with Paribas Capital Markets, working with hedge funds and multinational corporations. He’d also been part of the treasury, corporate finance and manufacturing finance divisions of Apple for 10 years.

The DigitalBits Project’s founder, Al Burgio, noted “David and Julie bring deep expertise and industry acumen to our advisory board. Together with the rest of the advisory team, David and Julie will offer invaluable leadership and new perspectives as we help the multi-billion dollar loyalty and rewards industry overcome some of its longstanding issues of friction and liquidity, with the decentralized DigitalBits blockchain.”

It’s clear there’s a sound recipe going into the construction and likely eventual success of DigitalBits, but the recipe always has to be executed, and that’s where many potential problems emerge. You can use all the best ingredients in that cake, but if you bake it too long, it still comes out a smoldering brick. If you don’t start with the right ingredients, though, even a skilled baker can only go so far, so DigitalBits has effectively won half the battle here. With a receptive market likely eager for a way to put loyalty programs to work to distinguish themselves from the competition, this could go well.

DigitalBits has the right people to support the project, that much is clear. How the project will ultimately come out, though…that’s what everyone’s watching now.