Eric Williams is the Principal at E2 Innovation Group which provides Advisory Services to startup and established companies in the Retail Technology, Consumer Promotion, and Retail Advertising space. His focus includes some key areas such as mobile & location-based solutions, electronic payments, and loyalty executions with specific skills in the area of technology selection & implementation, large data base selection & utilization, as well as the use of consumer analytics.

Williams spent over 35 years in the area of Retail Technology development and retired after almost 20 years with Catalina Marketing Corporation. While at Catalina he served as the executive vice president and chief information officer responsible for directing strategic technology, research and development, and new applications. Williams also served as the Chief Privacy Officer (CPO) for Catalina Marketing and was responsible for the overall consumer privacy activity for the company.

He is an accomplished inventor with a number of US and International patents. In 2007, he was named CIO of the year by the Tampa Bay Technology Forum and in 2011, Information Week ranked Catalina Marketing as one of the top five most innovative technology organizations in the nation according to their Information Week 500 study. He was also one of Information Week’s featured CIOs in 2011 and both Catalina and Williams were featured in the cover article on Big Data that same year.