Adolfo Fernández
Digital commerce platforms now sit between most consumer-facing companies and their customers. The operating decisions that matter, around discovery, conversion, and cross-border reach, are increasingly shaped by how a handful of global platforms structure attention and demand. Senior leaders need a working view of that landscape from someone who has built inside it, not described it from outside.
Adolfo Fernandez is a Silicon Valley product and commercial executive who helps senior leaders read how digital commerce platforms are reshaping international growth, brand building, and customer behaviour.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Adolfo Fernandez
- Operator perspective from inside the two platforms reshaping global retail. He has led commercialisation strategy for Google Shopping’s mid-market segment and now Global Product Strategy and Operations for TikTok’s eCommerce advertising suite.
- A working framework for cross-border growth, drawn from running Google’s internationalization advisory practice for the mid-market. It addresses the question most growth-stage companies misjudge: when domestic plateau means it is time to enter a new market, and on what terms.
- Recognised by the World Economic Forum, which invited him into its Expert Network on Retail, Consumer Goods and Lifestyle, and Digital Communications. That credential signals depth that bureau platforms alone cannot.
- Comfort across three buyer registers: regulators and policy bodies (UN, WTO), executive education audiences (IE Business School, MIT), and corporate boards. Leaders get a speaker who can move between policy frame and operating frame without losing either.
- Delivery in English, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, which makes him useful for European and Latin American leadership audiences that other Silicon Valley operators cannot reach without translation.
Biography highlights
- Global Director of Product Strategy and Operations for eCommerce advertising at TikTok, based in San Francisco
- Former Google leader: Business Development Manager for Spain and Portugal, Global Program Manager for Internationalization advisory, and Google Shopping commercialisation strategy lead for the SMB segment
- World Economic Forum Expert Network member since 2019 in Retail, Consumer Goods and Lifestyle, and Digital Communications
- Speaker at more than 200 international conferences, including United Nations and World Trade Organization platforms
- Guest lecturer at IE Business School and MIT
- MA in International Management, IE Business School; BA in Business Administration, University of Santiago de Compostela
Biography
Most companies still treat international expansion as a sequencing problem: which market next, in what order, on what timeline. The harder question is platform-shaped. Discovery, conversion and brand association now run through a small number of global commerce environments, and the rules of entry differ across them. That is the terrain Adolfo Fernandez works in.
He is currently Global Director of Product Strategy and Operations for eCommerce advertising at TikTok, where he leads product strategy, product marketing and go-to-market for the platform’s commerce advertising suite. The role sits at the centre of one of the most consequential shifts in consumer attention of the last five years.
Before TikTok, he spent close to a decade at Google. He started as Business Development Manager for Spain and Portugal in 2015, then took over Google’s Internationalization advisory services for the mid-market in 2018, before moving to San Francisco to lead Google Shopping commercialisation strategy for the SMB segment. The arc gave him an unusual vantage on how mid-sized firms actually win, and lose, in cross-border digital commerce.
His public-facing work has reached the UN and the World Trade Organization, executive audiences at IE Business School and MIT, and the World Economic Forum, which invited him into its Expert Network on retail, consumer goods and digital communications in 2019. He works in English, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, which extends his reach into European and Latin American audiences that most Silicon Valley operators cannot serve directly.
Key speaking topics
- Digital commerce and platform strategy
- International growth and market entry
- Retail technology and consumer behaviour
- Brand building in digital-first markets
- Innovation and product strategy
- Future of work in technology-led organisations
Ideal for
- Boards and executive teams of mid-market and large companies planning international growth
- CMOs, commercial directors and digital leaders rethinking discovery, paid media and conversion economics
- Retail, consumer goods and lifestyle leadership teams reassessing platform dependency
- Executive education and leadership development audiences in Europe and Latin America
Audience outcomes
- A clearer read on how Google and TikTok are changing the economics of consumer attention and commerce
- A practical lens for deciding when and how to enter new international markets
- A working distinction between innovation and creativity inside large organisations
- Specific examples of how digital-native brands have built relevance and speed without losing core values
Talks
A talk on winning globally in a borderless commerce environment, built around a three-step internationalisation framework drawn from his work running Google’s mid-market internationalization advisory.
Key takeaways:
- A structured way to assess when domestic plateau means it is time to enter a new market
- The conditions under which cross-border digital commerce works, and the conditions under which it does not
- How platform behaviour shapes which markets become economic for which kinds of brands
A talk on building brands in the age of immediacy, focused on how brands move quickly without losing what made them distinctive in the first place.
Key takeaways:
- How leading consumer brands use digital channels to shorten the distance between intent and purchase
- Where speed creates brand value and where it erodes it
- Practical patterns from companies that have scaled brand and commerce together
A talk on building organisations that stay relevant, separating the work of creativity from the work of innovation as managed practice.
Key takeaways:
- Why the creativity vs innovation distinction matters for resourcing and accountability
- The organisational habits that make continuous relevance possible
- Where leadership attention should sit when an organisation is being asked to change repeatedly