VP Strategy & Operations @ Prescient AI | Helping omnichannel brands to optimize spend | Co-founder Don't VLOOKUP

I didn’t come up through marketing.

I came up through finance.

Investing, M&A, diligence across hundreds of omnichannel brands.

I then became an operator, managing and deploying budgets directly and making the pitch to finance for more. 

The same questions came up every time:

Where should the next dollar actually go? How can we scale profitably? 

Marketing was always the largest variable line-item that went chronically underutilized. 

ROAS looked great in decks.

Cash flow and lifetime value told a different story.

The real issue wasn’t growth.

It was efficiency of working dollars - marketing, inventory, and capital tied up in the wrong bets.

So teams default to decisions without a more forward-thinking lens: 

• Optimize to what could be tracked with clicks

• Undervalue upper-funnel channels

• Cut spend that *looked* inefficient

• Then wonder why demand fell apart weeks later

That gap is why I joined Prescient.

Most tools explain yesterday yet ignore the reality that conditions on the field are constantly changing.

We focus on how dollars actually move the business - across channels, over time, and beyond last-click.

Not perfect attribution.

Better decisions that break down the barriers between marketing and finance to invest with confidence.

Will Holtz

Kait Stephens

Helping brands bridge offline & online commerce 🔁 | Omnichannel Queen 👑 | Host of the Omnichannel Marketer podcast 🎙️ | CEO & Co-Founder @ Brij 🌉 | Angel Investor

👋👋👋 I’m Kait the CEO and Founder of BRIJ! My friends call me the queen of Omnichannel 👑. I also host a podcast called the Omnichannel Marketer 🎙️. 

My background is in Omnichannel Retail and Ecommerce. I help brands solve the pain of having no connection, relationship, or insights from buyers coming through retail and marketplace channels.

I share Omnichannel strategy and best practices. 

And I founded BRIJ, a platform for brands to build Omnichannel Experiences - a new digital touch point in physical channels to communicate key messages, collect 1st party data, and drive reorder.

If you ever want to talk Omichannel, the future of retail, connected experience, or QR codes, I’m happy to chat any time!

CEO & Co-Founder

Brij is building the infrastructure to "bridge" online & offline channels.

Do you know anything about the people who purchased your product at Retail or on Amazon today?

It is a simple, powerful question. That no one in consumer marketing can answer. 

Retail and Marketplace are black box channels… until now.

Where most consumer brands see darkness, Brij sees a new brand touch point, a communication channel, access to customers (and associated data), and new marketing opportunities. 

Brij is an Omnichannel Marketing platform that empowers brands to bridge the offline & online gap to create a connected on-brand experience that provides more value to buyers. 

And helps marketers to know who purchased what, when, and where - every day, in real-time, 24/7/365.

I’m so excited to be speaking at empowHER. x Shopify’s Built By HER Summit on March 11th.

This event is a full-day, invitation-led, workshop-style experience for women building within the Shopify ecosystem - founders, decision-makers, marketing leaders, and operators across DTC, retail, and commerce technology.

Here’s what I’ve learned as a founder:
1️⃣ Access matters
2️⃣ Community matters more
3️⃣ Seeing someone who looks like you on stage? It changes what feels possible

When I started Brij, I wasn’t thinking about “being a female founder.” I was thinking about solving a real problem for brands and retailers. 

But along the way, I’ve realized how powerful it is to build in public as a woman in tech, especially in AI and commerce - industries still largely shaped by men.

Events like Built By HER create something bigger than a panel. They create momentum.

I’m excited to share:
✨ Lessons from scaling Brij
✨ What I’m seeing in AI + retail right now
✨ And how to build with conviction (even when the odds aren’t stacked in your favor)

If you are responsible for growth, innovation, or execution inside your company, this room is for you.

It’s such an honor to be speaking alongside these incredible women: Amanda Sannella, McKayla Lankau, Julia Winn, Lizzie Andrew, Lena El-Ayoubi, Tash Courtenay-Smith, Gina Perrelli.

Tickets linked in the comments👇

People say to me, “You make running a business and being a mom look effortless.”

And I always laugh a little.

Because what you’re not seeing is:
- The board deck getting rewritten at 11:47pm
- The Slack threads I’m mentally responding to during bath time
- The five-year product vision living next to the girls’ story books
- The constant toggling between CEO brain and mom brain

It’s not effortless or easy. It’s integrated.

Building a company is a full-time job. Raising kids is a full-time job.

I just happen to love two full-time jobs at once.

Is it chaotic? Definitely. Is it worth it? Every single time.

The real skill isn’t balance. 
It’s knowing when to zoom out, and when to be fully, completely in the room.

Curious, what’s something people think you make look easy that absolutely isn’t?

If you want to see where CPG is headed next, you go to Expo West.

March 3–6, Sarah (Davidson) Molloy, Andrew Zimmerman, Paul Piazza, and I will be in Anaheim, CA. Natural Products Expo West is one of those rare moments where you can actually feel the future of consumer brands unfolding in real time.

New products. Fun outfits.

There is truly no conference that is more fun.

If you’re going to be there, let’s connect.

What are you most excited to see this year? #expowest

I spent the weekend in San Francisco.

And as much as there's AI frenzy in New York, it feels 10X on the West Coast.

I had the chance to chat with friends who are investors in companies like Anthropic, startup operators using AI tools daily, and people building at unicorns like Decagon.

And honestly? I came home feeling like I needed to up my ante.

So I did something I'd been putting off: I tried Claude Code for the first time.

I'm already an avid Claude user. But I'd never touched their coding functionality.

Here's the thing about Claude Code - once you get past the fear of the terminal-looking view, it's shockingly easy to use.

What I built in my first session:
→ A fully functioning calendar app
→ Weekly, monthly, and daily views
→ Dark mode
→ Drag-and-drop events
→ Contact saving

All in plain language. Two prompts.

What blew my mind:
- Claude gives itself a to-do list (yes, really)
- Plan mode vs. agent mode changes everything
- You watch it code in real time

I'm not technical. I don't code. But I built something that actually works.

For startups, this is massive.

Anything that feels operationally painful or complex? There's now a path to automate it—without hiring a developer or waiting months.

I'm bringing this back to the Brij team this week.

If you've been curious but intimidated, just start. The barrier is lower than you think.

Thanks for the inspo Will Holtz.

Congrats to our friends & customers at Gimme Beauty on their nationwide Target launch. 

👏👏 Jeff Durham

CEO, Co-Founder Durham Brands (Gimme Beauty®), Founder CPGX Forum

Launching TODAY nation-wide at Target 
🎯 🙌 🎉 !!!

Heatless curling done the Gimme Beauty way. The BETTER way.

Wrap.
Rest.
Reveal.

Women know that heat damages hair. Curling hair while you sleep is not new. 
BUT... other solutions are bulky, make it hard to sleep in, too silky that hair slides off, and most get bad reviews.

This new disruptive version is minimalistic, super soft, comfortable, breathable fabric that grips without damaging, and the CURLS - the Women who have used this system are hooked! 

And of course, they are all designed by hair type: Fine, Medium, and Thick versions. (also doubles as big curls, medium curls, and small curls) Find the one that's right for you. 

Go to Target - Find the Gimme Beauty collection. Give it a try.

Your support means the world to us and our mission!

Go Gimme!!! Enjoy one of our national commercial spots here below. A lot of eyeballs are going see this and the campaign fireworks are just getting started...

Hot take: Getting on shelf is the easy part.

Staying on shelf is where brands live or die.

I’ll be at Natural Products Expo West March 3–5 with the Brij team, meeting founders focused on driving the velocity that keeps buyers happy and driving repeat purchases.

If retail performance is the goal - not just logos on a deck - let’s talk.

Here’s what I’m hearing from brands right now: 
1️⃣ Retail is more competitive than ever
2️⃣ Paid acquisition costs aren’t getting cheaper
3️⃣ Brands are sitting on incredible in-store demand, but not capturing the data

That’s the gap we help close.

At Brij, we use AI-powered rebates to help brands:
- Drive conversion & velocity at shelf
- Capture first-party data compliantly
- Build owned relationships beyond retail
- Actually measure what’s working to drive revenue growth and ROAS

If you're a brand leader thinking about how to connect retail to growth and retention, I’d love to meet.

Grab time with us below! 👇

Let’s make Expo count.

Excited to be part of The Shortlist NY Founder Showcase on February 23rd!

I’ll be sharing what we’re building at Brij - and why I believe the future of commerce is owned relationships, not rented audiences.

10 spots left if you want in 👀

gathering extraordinary people & angel investing | x-google, meta

I'm excited to reveal the extraordinary founders who will be presenting at The Shortlist NY Founder Showcase on Feb 23

This month's lineup features six breakout founders in NYC - the types of startups you want to know before everyone else does.

– Chris Hladczuk, Goldman Sachs alum who raised $31m to build Hanover Park, an AI-native fund administrator with $10B+ in assets.

– Weber Wong, former Evercore and Menlo Ventures, who raised $42m for FLORA, from Redpoint, a16z, and Menlo Ventures to build Cursor for creatives.

– Rohan Pavuluri, Harvard alum who scaled Speechify to 50m+ users and 160 people.

– Kait Stephens, Airbnb, Blackstone, and Goldman Sachs alum who raised $8m to bridge offline-to-online customer relationships with AI with Brij.

– Oliver Brocato, former founder of Tabs (8-figure revenue), who scaled Bustem.com to $3m+ ARR to protect eComm brands from copycats.

– Kevin Weatherman, Twitter alum who raised $6m from M12, Eniac Ventures to build Upscale AI – an AI platform to generate and optimize video ads.

Each founder will have 8 minutes to convince you why you should join their mission to transform the world.

Meet them in person on Feb 23 at betaworks!

Apply to attend (we have 10 spots left): https://lnkd.in/esj4DkNe

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The Battle

Will Holtz

Kait Stephens

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Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Kait Stephens's LinkedIn Performance

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