Ali Akbar

VP of Product & Digital at Grainger

Ali Akbar is VP, Product, Portfolio, and Digital Strategy at W. W. Grainger, a leading industrial supplies distributor. As part of his responsibilities, Ali currently leads development of Generative AI solutions Grainger is building. Ali previously led Strategy and Analytics for the company. Prior to joining Grainger, Ali spent 12 years at Boston Consulting Group, where he was a Partner and Managing Director working across Industrials and Medical Technology. His early career roles were in data science and analytics.

Ali earned his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and BA in Mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania. Ali grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania. Outside of work, Ali serves on the Board of the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago and is based in the North Chicago suburbs. Ali and his wife, Nilofer, have two children aged 10 and 8.