SPEAKERS
Thom Blischok
Thom Blischok is the Chief Retail Strategist and Senior Executive Advisor at Booz & Company. He is responsible for assisting retail clients understand, create, and implement a broad range of growth strategies for their respective banners. In addition, he supports a large number of traditional Consumer Package Goods clients design and implement next generation collaboration strategies and platforms. Thom is best known for his market leading thought leadership across a broad range of current industry issues including key marketing, merchandising, operations, format innovation, and organizational and operational design. He is a recognized international speaker who is well known for delivering compelling insights into the global retail and manufacturing industry.
Jorge Corral
As Managing Director, Jorge Corral leads Accenture's North American Retail Sourcing & Procurement practice. Jorge has worked in driving procurement and business transformation for over 18 years, helping organizations with SG&A cost management and other areas of driving value. He is based out of Accenture’s Denver office.
John DeRose
John is an Executive Director at Ernst & Young, LLP and a member of Ernst and Young’s Climate Change and Sustainability Services (CCASS) group, working with clients to help address their sustainability needs and challenges. John has more than 16 years of reporting, assurance, risk management and controls experience serving large multi-national organizations. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) Assurance Services Executive Committee Sustainability Task Force. He also works with the AICPA’s Conflict Mineral task force. John also serves as a member of the University of Colorado’s Denver Business School Managing for Sustainability Advisory Council. He is a board member, member of the Corporate Governance Committee and Treasurer for Connected Organizations for a Responsible Economy (CORE), a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to promoting sustainable business practices and a more responsible economy.
Ned Finn
Ned Finn is Inmar’s Vice President of Pharmacy Services, responsible for strategy development and execution of Inmar’s solution offerings for pharmacies. With nearly 20 years of pharmacy distribution, fulfillment and business operations experience, Ned is adept at developing and leading pharmacy programs that meet the unique and evolving needs of companies in this industry, especially as they face increasingly complex economic and regulatory pressures. Ned came to Inmar from Walgreens, where he served as Vice President, Specialty Pharmacy. He oversaw the division’s six sigma program and was responsible for business systems, pharmacy automation and software selection/implementation. Previously, Ned was Director of Pharmacy Services for Giant Eagle. He also served as Director of Pharmacy Practice for Medco Specialty Pharmacy and has held positions with CVS ProCare as well as Stadtlander Drug Company. Ned holds a Bachelor of Science degree in pharmacy from the University of Pittsburgh.
Bob Graybill
Robert Graybill, CPA, is the President and CEO of FMS and has over 20 years of experience in the retail grocery industry. Currently, he leads the FMS team in meeting their goal of helping retailers to succeed through benchmarking, best practices, and decision support. Bob spent 9 years working with A&P in variety of roles. Prior to joining A&P, Bob worked for a local independent grocer in the Baltimore market. He has authored the FMS/N.G.A. Independent Grocers Survey and FMI's Annual Financial Review. He has also served as a speaker at the N.G.A. Financial Symposium, N.G.A.'s annual conferences and FMI's annual trade show In addition, he has taught at the IGA Coca-Cola Institute’s Supermarket Management Program. Bob holds an MBA from the Executive Program at Loyola University Maryland and has completed the N.G.A. Executive Management Program at Cornell University. He currently serves on the Accounting Advisory Board at the University of Baltimore.
Amy Grubbs
Amy Grubbs is a CPA and an Executive Director with Ernst & Young’s assurance practice. She is based in the San Antonio office, where she has worked throughout her 15-year career. Amy’s areas of specialization are consumer products and not-for-profit. Amy has experience serving both public and private companies and has experience in SOX 404 reporting. Amy earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Accounting from Michigan State University. She is a CPA, licensed in the State of Texas.
Mathew Harrowing
As Vice President, Analytics & Advisory Services, Mathew Harrowing leads the PRGX analytics and data transformation services in North America. As such, he represents the firm’s analytics and data management capabilities and interacts with clients and other audit and advisory service lines to identify client issues and leverage analytics capabilities to create innovative client solutions. Mathew has more than 20 years of experience helping clients with transformational projects, changing the way executives view and use their corporate data.
Jennifer Hatcher
Jennifer Hatcher serves as Senior Vice President, Government and Public Affairs for the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) overseeing federal, state and regulatory efforts on public policy, legislative and political issues impacting the supermarket industry. She has held this position since 2009 and has been at FMI in the government relations area since 1998. Prior to coming to FMI, Jennifer served as Chief of Staff to United States Congressman Spencer Bachus (AL), currently Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law Subcommittee and past Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Jennifer also served as Special Assistant and White House Liaison at the Department of the Treasury during President George H.W. Bush’s Administration and as a White House intern during the Reagan Administration. Jennifer has an undergraduate degree in Political Science and Communication from Vanderbilt University and a Masters in Government from Johns Hopkins University.
David Horsager
David Horsager is a business strategist, college professor, keynote speaker and author of the new book THE TRUST EDGE: How Top Leaders Gain Faster Results, Deeper Relationships, and a Stronger Bottom Line. His roster of past and present clients includes FedEx, Wells Fargo, American Express, ING, the Department of Homeland Security, Medtronic, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, the Minnesota Vikings, Covidien, and John Deere Credit. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, with his wife, Lisa, and their four children.
With his new book THE TRUST EDGE: How Top Leaders Gain Faster Results, Deeper Relationships, and a Stronger Bottom Line, David presents readers with the ultimate guide to earning, maintaining, and even rebuilding this most critical factor of every business relationship. Thoroughly researched, but made practical for the 21st century leader, THE TRUST EDGE is based on Horsager’s Eight Pillars of Trust: Clarity, Compassion, Commitment, Character Competency, Connection, Contribution, Consistency
Sam Glenn
Sam Glenn is known at The Attitude Guy and has become one of the most recognized quthorities on the subject of Attitude today. Sam understands success and failure. At one time, Sam was negative, broke, depressed, homeless and got by working odd jobs at night as a janitor and delivering newspapers. Sam's attitude was in the dumps until a dear friend gave him what he calls a "Kick in the Attitude," a gift that changed his attitude for the better. Sam began to work on improving his attitude and made some personal and professional discoveries. With a new attitude in play, Sam went from sleeping on the floor and working as a janitor, to achieving dreams he once thought were unreachable.
Today, Sam is the author of several success books and energizes audiences as large as 75,000 at stadium events with his inspirational speeches and humor. For the past 15 years Sam Glenn has worked with hundreds of organizations on Training and Development, Peak Performance, Employee Motivation, Staff development, Leadership Training, Fundraisers or simply kicking off an event with the purpose to create a positive tone. Great things happen when you adopt a great attitude and apply it daily. In 2011 he was named Speaker of the Year by MI Meeting and Events Magazine. In 2010, Sam was awarded a Telly Award for Most Outstanding Motivational Video. In 2009, Sam was named Speaker of the Year by MPI (Meeting Professionals International). Sam currently resides in Indianapolis, fishes in his spare time and spends as much time with family when he is not traveling and motivating groups for success.
Richard Krone
Richard K. Crone leads Crone Consulting LLC, helping retailers, billers, financial institutions, payment networks, processors, start-ups and investors transform payments from a cost of business to revenue-producing new lines of business. In his 32-year career in financial services, he has focused on harnessing the technological innovations that have shaped the industry, from the introductions of ATMs, home banking, internet commerce, and electronic bill presentment and Payment, to today’s mobile banking and payment developments. Mr. Crone has helped define the mobile commerce strategy for leading retailers, financial institutions, wireless carriers, payment processors, large recurring billers, card issuers, device manufacturers and technology start-ups. Richard spent the early years of his career at Unisys marketing transaction processing systems, followed by eight years with KPMG Consulting as a Senior Manager where he founded the firm’s Center for Electronic Commerce. He led Home Savings of America as Senior Vice President & Director of Electronic Banking in their successful release of online banking with Microsoft Money and Intuit's Quicken. He drew upon his extensive payment and remittance processing experience to envision and launch the first Electronic Check Service for the Internet, CyberCash’s PayNow™. He was part of the founding team, and served on the Board of Directors of edocs, the preeminent supplier of customer self service and Internet bill presentment and payment solutions, from the company’s inception until it was sold to Siebel. Richard holds a Master of Business Administration degree, beta gamma sigma, and a Bachelor of Science degree, cum laude, from the University of Southern California.
Heidi A. Liebenguth
Heidi A. Liebenguth is Senior Partner and Research Director at Crone Consulting, LLC and has experience assisting retailers, banks, and major payment networks define and implement their mobile banking, mobile payment and customer self-service strategies. She has executed RFPs and performed research on over 60 different companies offering mobile financial and retailing services, payments and mobile self-marketing. Heidi is a subject matter expert on all facets of customer self-service, self-marketing and loyalty. She has conducted extensive research on internet bill presentment & payment, online banking, emerging/alternative payments and other data processing services. Prior to joining Crone Consulting, Heidi led her own advertising, public relations and communications strategy firm. Previously, Heidi held the position of Advertising Manager at the American Broadcasting Company KABC-TV, Los Angeles. She holds an MBA and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Southern California.
Scott Moses
Scott Moses is the Managing Director and Head of Food, Drug and Specialty Retail Investment Banking at Sagent Advisors. Scott specializes in retail sector strategic and financial advice and has executed many M&A and financing engagements for retailers. Scott was selected to IDD’s “40 under 40” list of promising finance professionals in 2011 and has been a featured speaker at various FMI, Topco and ICSC conferences in recent years. Prior to joining Sagent Advisors, Scott was an Executive Director at J.P. Morgan Investment Bank where he led one of Wall Street’s most prominent food & drug retail M&A efforts. Scott has advised clients in many of the largest retail M&A transactions in the past decade with a combined transaction value of over $50bn. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and received his MBA and JD degrees from Columbia University, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and an executive editor of the Columbia Business Law Review.
Millard Nance
Millard Nance is a pharmacy industry executive with extensive leadership experience, spanning nearly 40 years. His skills in strategic planning, developing diverse, cross-functional teams, and creating profitable change management have facilitated sustainable business growth within several companies. His previous positions include Vice President, Pharmacy at Delhaize America, Vice President, Pharmacy at Hannaford Supermarkets, Inc., Vice President, Pharmacy at Medicine Shoppe Int’l and Director of Strategic Services, Pharmacy Operations Management at H-E-B Supermarkets.
John O'Rourke
John O’Rourke is Vice President of Product Marketing at Oracle Corporation, focusing on business analytics. With a background in accounting and finance, John has over 25 years of experience in the software industry and 16 years of experience in product marketing at Hyperion Solutions and Oracle. He has worked with many customers and partners on financial reporting and planning initiatives and has spoken and written on many topics in business analytics and enterprise performance management. John has also held positions in strategic marketing and product marketing at Dun & Bradstreet Software and Kenan Systems. John has a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from Bentley University and an MBA from Boston College.
Chris Pierce
Chris Pierce is the Managing Partner of Assurance Services at McGladrey, LLP, based in the Texas office, serving clients in the grocery, retail, manufacturing and distribution industries. In addition to assisting clients as a general business advisor, he provides services related to attestation and due diligence procedures with regards to mergers, acquisitions, equity financing and other transactional situations, plans, manages and develops strategies for audit services and assists clients with GAAP issues and implementation. Chris worked for a Big Four firm after graduation and joined McGladrey in 1996. He holds a B.S in Business Administration with a Major in Accounting from Tri State University, Angola, Indiana and completed a three-year continuing education program offered by the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota as a joint venture with McGladrey. He is a CPA licensed in Texas and seven other states.
Anne-Marie Roerink
Anne-Marie is a Principal at 210 Analytics, LLC — a marketing research firm located in San Antonio, TX. 210 Analytics focuses on customized research and marketing strategies with a specialty in grocery. Anne-Marie served as the Director of Research for the Food Marketing Institute for seven years. In this capacity, she was responsible for developing, implementing and directing all FMI’s research efforts with state-of-the-industry consumer insights and food retailing operational benchmarking. Before joining FMI, Anne-Marie was the Director of Marketing & Research at the American Society of Travel Agents. She earned a Masters and Bachelors degree in international business in the Netherlands.
Karen Short
Karen is a senior research analyst on BMO’s consumer team, covering the food retailing industry. Karen has more than 10 years of experience in equity research. She joined BMO Capital Markets from Friedman Billings Ramsey, where she covered consumer and food retail for three years. Her earlier experience covering the retail industry includes research positions at Lehman Brothers, SAC Capital Management and Fulcrum Global Partners. Karen began her professional career in energy sales and trading in Seattle and Vancouver. In 2012, she was ranked #4 in the annual Greenwich analyst survey. In 2011, she was the top ranked analyst in the Wall Street Journal’s annual “Best on the Street”. She was also ranked the number three stock picker for Food & Staples Retailing in the 2011 StarMine Analyst Awards. Karen earned her MBA at Columbia Business School in New York and her BA at Queen’s University in Ontario.
Holly Shotts
Holly Shotts is Director of Financial Accounting at Brookshire Grocery Company. She is a CPA with 20 years of experience in the retail grocery industry. Holly is a graduate of Southern Arkansas University and began her career with Brookshires in 1992. She has worked on numerous projects throughout her career as well as leading various financial departments. She is currently responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the company's financial statements and directs the AP, AR and bank reconciliation departments.
Chad Soares
Chad Soares is a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers. He has over 18 years of experience advising corporate and financial buyer clients, who benefit from his expertise not only in leasing, but related areas such as consolidation, revenue recognition, joint venture accounting and other complex financing transactions. Chad has been at the heart of PWC’s efforts to respond to proposed changes in lease accounting, working to understand the changes and the practical impact of adoption as well as developing internal guidance. Chad spent 10 years living in London and working throughout Europe where he gained extensive experience advising on public-private partnerships, capital raising transactions, cross-border public debt and equity offerings, private placements, mergers and acquisitions, share based compensation and the periodic reporting obligations applicable to foreign private issuers. Chad is a C.P.A. in New York and Massachusetts and earned his Bachelor of Science degree from Boston College.
Dustin Stamper
Dustin Stamper is a Director in Grant Thornton’s Washington National Tax Office. Dustin is responsible for monitoring tax legislative and regulatory activity for the firm. He provides legislative and regulatory updates both internally and externally for clients and potential clients. He also develops and edits marketing and public relations material and is responsible for communicating with legislative staff on tax priorities. In addition, he coordinates the Washington National Tax Office’s press coverage, prepares technical analyses of regulatory and legislative developments and writes and edits both published articles and official comments on regulatory matters. Dustin spent four years on Capitol Hill covering federal and state tax legislative developments as well as regulatory developments at the IRS and Treasury.