Dawn Baker, chief technology officer at Back Market, an online marketplace for refurbished electronics, views sustainability as central to the company's mission. "We have an environmental mission at our heart," Baker stated. "What that means for me, as a technology leader, is looking at how we optimize our compute, because we have to make sure we’re not using more than we need."
Baker noted that artificial intelligence presents significant opportunities but also consumes considerable resources. She described AI as the "opposite of environmentally friendly" while acknowledging its important use cases. Her approach emphasizes using AI "smartly and not falling for the hype by trying to use it for everything."
Given consumer skepticism towards refurbished goods, Back Market has directed its AI investments toward customer-facing functions. These include customer care, fraud detection, pricing intelligence, and quality assurance. Baker believes that "investing in customer experiences that build trust… doesn’t just benefit us; it benefits the entire category by getting people to think about how to make everything they have last longer."
Baker was recognized on the 2026 TIME Executives of the Year: Tech and Data list for her leadership in shaping the future of technology.