Ray Gaul, co-founder & CEO at Retail Cities, started his career as a US Peace Corps volunteer teaching marketing and economics in Western Ukraine at the end of the Soviet era. While in Ukraine, he witnessed a retail revolution in real time. Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola took over the point of sale in Ukraine, almost overnight, and hired most of his students and friends as employees. Soon after, McDonalds and Metro Cash & Carry followed a similar journey.

Ray became hooked, developing an obsession for understanding the relationship between governments, consumers, retailers and brands. He enrolled in graduate school at Boston University to learn more about the rapid economic transformation of economies across the globe, specializing in Eurasia and the former CIS.

Over the last 20 years, Ray has focused on understanding the retailer-on-retailer competition and how that changes brand strategies and investments, and through the years has become a world-renowned expert on the dynamics of retail competition and the future of the commerce. At Retail Cities, he continues to expand his skills in understanding the current wave of retail reinvention that is disrupting blue-chip companies around the world.