The 29-Year-Old Who Rocked Facebook Has Big Data Plans for H&M

Fashion retailer Hennes & Mauritz AB wants to get a better sense of what makes its customers tick. To help it, the Swedish company just hired a man best known for revealing a data privacy scandal that rocked Facebook Inc. and raised serious questions around how some corners of technology are shaping human existence.

At H&M, 29-year-old Christopher Wylie will help the company use big data and artificial intelligence to make sure it actually designs things shoppers want. If successful, the Cambridge Analytica whistle-blower might be able to help fix some of H&M’s most pressing issues, including getting its inventory under control and ultimately making the company more profitable.