Maker of the only real-time, AI-powered personalization engine designed for grocery continues to strengthen its retail relationships with new executive hire and adds James McCann, Chairman and CEO of Food Retail Ventures and Alexander Tuzhilin, Ph.D., Professor of Information Systems at NYU Stern School of Business to Halla’s advisory board.

Halla, the taste intelligence company that powers personalized, real-time recommendations, substitutions, and search for online grocery stores, announced today that Brian Murphy has joined the company as EVP of Business Transformation effective immediately. In this new role, Murphy will be responsible for driving Halla’s growth while maintaining its existing company culture focused on driving innovation.

Marketing Technology News: Tru Social Offers A New Solution to the Social Media Crisis

Brian Murphy is a retail and shopper insights veteran with deep experience in the emerging AI/ML transformation space. As a former executive at dunnhumby, Symphony AI, and emnos, he successfully transformed business units, team cultures, and portfolios. Mr. Murphy’s track record is a story of continuous innovation and strategic planning, resulting in unprecedented growth for retail, CPG and finserv companies.

“After a career at some of the largest customer data science and retail insights companies in the world, Halla immediately stood out to me as doing something different,” said Murphy. “Not only does the product offer grocers personalization on a whole new level, the company culture is like nothing I’ve seen. The Halla team is empowered with freedom to explore bold ideas, be fearless in their approach and joyous and mindful in their interactions. I’m thrilled to be joining such an energetic and innovative company on the cusp of explosive growth.”

Halla uses multi-modal artificial intelligence that “understands” grocery and how humans relate to food. Halla’s algorithms are trained on data from more than 800,000 food items, 125,000 ingredients, 17 million recipes, and 30,000 substantial, contextual, and behavioral attributes. Not only does Halla’s AI accurately predict the items, brands, and quantities that a customer is looking for, it proactively recommends choices that match shopper dietary preferences and lifestyle choices. These features are proven to increase basket size and drive brand loyalty across regional and national grocery retailers.

Marketing Technology News: RTB House Wins 2021 Best Places To Work Award

“At Halla we believe that our inside out commitment to our company culture is what enables us to deliver the best solutions to our grocery customers,” said Spencer Price, CEO and co-founder of Halla. “We’re confident that Brian’s background and expertise in grocery, retail, and AI, combined with his enthusiasm for our culture, will help us scale without losing sight of what drives our team every day.”

Additionally, Halla has recently added two new advisors to its growing advisory board:

James McCann | Chairman and CEO of Food Retail Ventures
McCann served at various times as CEO of Tesco, Carrefour, and Ahold USA, and is now Chairman/CEO of food tech investor Food Retail Ventures, a senior advisor at McKinsey, non-executive Chairman of Green Rabbit grocery delivery service, and an investor/advisor/board member for a number of AI food startups. James supports Halla with market strategy, industry intelligence, and business connections.

Alexander Tuzhilin, Ph.D., | Professor of Information Systems at NYU Stern School of Business
Tuzhilin, the endowed Leonard N. Stern Professor at the NYU Stern School of Business, is a world-leading expert in personalization, recommender systems, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. Dr. Tuzhilin serves on the boards of multiple influential computer science and information technology journals. His patents and expertise have been utilized by Facebook, Google, and others. His work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and the Financial Times. Dr. Tuzhilin helps ensure that Halla’s personalization technology is in a class of its own in the industry.