Zalando SE announced that its supervisory board has proposed the election of Peter Sarlin, a European pioneer in machine learning and artificial intelligence, as a supervisory board member at the annual general meeting on 12 May 2026. Sarlin will add strong, dedicated AI expertise to the supervisory board as Zalando scales a wide range of AI innovations to drive growth and efficiency across its entire business. Sarlin is the founder of Silo AI, Europe's largest private AI lab, which was acquired by AMD in 2024. He is also the chairperson of the board at companies NestAI and Qutwo, and a professor of practice at Aalto University, specialising in machine learning and AI.
Sarlin is nominated to succeed Susanne Schroter-Crossan, who has decided to step down from her supervisory board mandate effective at the end of the AGM. The supervisory board thanked Schroter-Crossan sincerely for her outstanding and wide-ranging contributions and her dedicated service to the company’s strategic development during her tenure. Data, machine learning, and AI have been at the core of Zalando since its founding in 2008. The company is now supercharging the unique data and infrastructure platform it has built over 17 years with AI to make its own operations more efficient and provide customers and partners with experiences and services that seemed impossible just a few years ago.
Zalando is embracing agentic commerce as an exciting opportunity to create true lifestyle agents that understand the full context of customers’ lives and proactively serve them across all their fashion and lifestyle needs. As Zalando is building towards new, conversational ways to shop by evolving its Zalando Assistant into a true personal lifestyle companion, the company is already partnering with Sarlin’s Qutwo, one of Europe's most ambitious AI labs. The full invitation to the annual general meeting 2026 of Zalando SE is available on corporate.zalando.com.
“Peter will play a crucial role in governing and scaling our AI innovations further as we unlock tremendous value for our customers, our partners, and our business. He is an AI pioneer, and we are excited to work with him to embrace the tremendous opportunities ahead of us,” said Kelly Bennett, chairperson of the supervisory board. “On behalf of the board, I also want to express my deepest gratitude to Susanne Schroter-Crossan for her fantastic contribution and dedicated service to the company’s development during her tenure.” This move underscores Zalando's commitment to leveraging its rich fashion-specific data set and leading logistics fulfilment network through advanced AI, aiming to solidify its position as Europe's leading technology platform for fashion and lifestyle by transforming both internal efficiencies and external customer interactions.
