About Andrea
Andrea Abrams is a 25-year retail industry veteran with extensive experience in physical retail, as well as technologies for physical and virtual retail expansion. Andrea is a C-level global executive with a broad background in cross border expansion strategies and partnerships.
Andrea is a retail technology and blockchain investor, participating in pre-seed rounds of notable startups for physical and digital commerce. Andrea is the founder and CEO of PHYGICODE, a consortium and lab creating a phygital approach to Web3 adoption. Andrea is also Chief of Strategy at Faith Tribe, a Web2 to Web3 platform providing physical and digital tools for fashion creators. She is an NED at 3D engine, Threedium and Board Advisor at Lukso Blockchain, a Strategic Advisor to Web3 investment firm Scytale Ventures, a lead pre-seed investor in wearable NFT marketplace The Dematerialised and in sustainability platform Pool Berlin, among others. Andrea is featured in the 2022 Women of The Future book, she is the Davos Blockchain Hub (WEF) 2022 and 2023 Keynote speaker on NFTs for fashion, featured speaker R Vogue Greece Game Changers 2022 and a Threedium Top 50 XR Award recipient. Andrea is a Mentor at Farfetch Dream Assembly Base Camp, a Member Of 100 Women of Davos and Global Women Dubai. She was a Metaverse Fashion Week 2023 curator and is a Board of Trustees of Women of The Future Latin America.
Andrea has advised prominent retail clients such as Saint Laurent, The White Company, Regatta UK, and Etam Groupe on their international expansion strategies, including partner sourcing, franchising and real estate. She has also advised prominent retail and mixed-use projects in Canada, UK, France and the US with their International merchandising plans, with a focus on cross border and new concept tenants. She ran US operations for London-based retail agencies Lunson Mitchenall and Time Retail Partners between 2013 and 2016. In 2017, as part of her international merchandising work, Andrea joined Triple Five’s “American Dream” project as an international retail advisor.
Andrea previously spent a large part of her career in senior positions with US retail REIT General Growth Properties (NYSE: GGP at the time - now part of Brookfield Properties), the second largest shopping center owner at the time, where she was involved in launching GGP Ventures/GGP International, with transactions in Turkey, Brazil and Central America, and taking over development and asset management responsibilities for a $5 billion land and mixed-use portfolio upon GGP's acquisition of Rouse Companies in 2004, which included development and asset management responsibilities of prominent master planned communities and town centers. As part of her work in mixed-use, Andrea co-led the re-zoning and redevelopment of the 62-acre Ward Village in Honolulu, Hawaii, and served on the Executive Board of The Woodlands Company (TWDC) in Houston, TX, a Joint Venture of GGP and Morgan Stanley at the time.
Andrea has been a member of ICSC, BCSC and ULI. She is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame in the US, where she majored in engineering and architecture and was the recipient of the Alpha Rho Chi medal.