Jerry Alderman is the founder and CEO of Valkre. Through Valkre, he has helped companies including GE, Owens Corning, Philips, Amgen, Varian, Sabre and others leverage technology to improve Customer Value Creation and Co-Creation. He started his business career at Boise Corporation where he spent 12 years learning and experiencing the unique challenges of B2B companies. Before starting his business career, Jerry served six years on nuclear submarines as a Naval Officer through the Admiral Rickover program. These experiences, combined with a Bachelor Degree in Civil Engineering, a Master’s Degree in Nuclear Engineering, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business provide the basis for his work.

Steve Andersen founded Performance Methods, Inc. following a successful 20-year technology career within the high-growth business applications software industry. As President and Founder, he is involved in client projects, solution development and establishing strategic direction for PMI.

Steve served as “senior sales executive” multiple times during his career, and his background includes extensive experience in sales, sales management and sales leadership. He is the primary architect of Performance Methods’ Keys to Effective Strategic Account Planning Methodology™, Integrated Opportunity Management Methodology™, Customer Engagement Methodology™, Collaborative Planning Methodology™, SAM Portfolio™ and Engage/Win/Grow™ customer engagement methodology.

He has addressed a variety of audiences on a wide-range of sales and account management topics and has published numerous articles in the areas of sales, sales management and account management best practices. Steve is a frequent speaker at Strategic Account Management Association (SAMA) conferences and universities and is a member of the SAMA Certified Strategic Account Manager (CSAM) faculty. In July, 2015, he published The Keys to Effective Strategic Account Planning eBook with SAMA, which features best practices from the most successful SAM implementations around the globe. Steve’s new book, Beyond the Sales Process: 12 Proven Strategies for a Customer-Driven World (April 2016), was co-authored by Dave Stein and published by AMACOM, the publishing division of the American Management Association.

Steve’s client work has brought him into direct contact with many of the world’s largest corporations, including Adecco, Assurant, Bayer, BNY Mellon, Boehringer Ingelheim, Duke Energy, FedEx, Fujitsu, GE, Henkel, Hilton Worldwide, Honeywell, HP, John Deere, Konica Minolta, Merck, Nike, Panasonic, P&G, SAP, Sherwin Williams, Siemens, Telefonica, Verizon and Zurich Insurance Group.

He holds BS and MA degrees in Mathematics from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and resides with his family in Atlanta, GA.

Pete Athens is the Training Director for NALCO Water North America. He began his career as a Sales Representative for NALCO in Las Vegas, NV in 1990. He has served as a District Manager, Sales Manager, and Corporate Account Manager prior to joining the training team in 2010.

Pete graduated from Bucknell University in 1986 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. While at Bucknell, Pete played baseball and had an ROTC scholarship. Prior to starting his career with NALCO and Ecolab, Pete served as a United States Army officer as a Combat Engineer platoon leader, company executive officer, and battalion S-4 supply officer.

Pete published the sales book, A Tee Time for Selling, which provides fun analogies between golf and sales.

He has been active in coaching and leading youth sports. He has volunteered as a baseball coach in Las Vegas, NV; Chagrin Falls, OH; and Yorkville, IL. He served as the president of the Yorkville Youth Baseball Softball Association from 2006 to 2008. He was also elected to the Yorkville School Board in April 2011.

Steve is President and Founder of SellXL.com, a global sales training and consulting company based in Atlanta. In that role, he has developed several exciting sales methodologies that have been delivered to thousands of professional salespeople around the world, including Selling at the Executive Level (SellXL) and Sales Opportunity Snapshot (SOS).

Prior to forming his own company, Steve spent eight years as Vice President of Product Development for OnTarget, where he led the development of world-class sales training programs. He also spent nearly 28 years with IBM in sales, sales management and training management positions.

His articles on managing and winning major sales opportunities, selling to executives and other sales and marketing related issues have appeared in numerous publications including Velocity - the Quarterly Journal of the Strategic Account Management Association, Selling Power magazine, the Journal of Selling and Major Account Management, BtoB Magazine and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine.

Tim has held various management roles in Marketing, Sales, and Account Management in his 13 year tenure at John Deere Financial. Prior to joining John Deere Financial, he led the customer financing unit at Monsanto. As a Strategic Relationship Manager, he uses his prior experiences and skills to better understand the needs of strategic customers and deliver unique solutions and differentiated levels of service to this critically important segment. He focuses on strategic customers in both the Construction & Forestry Division and the Ag & Turf Division of John Deere.

Over 30 years of leadership and management experience within the enterprise software industry in roles that included Chief Executive Officer, Executive Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing, Sr. Vice President and General Manager and Sr. Vice President of Sales and Field Operations. I have a proven track record of success in organic and acquisition-based growth strategies enabling the development of long-term, sustainable relationships with shareholders, customers, partners and colleagues.

Volkhard Bregulla leads HP’s Global Account Organization for Germany & Central Eastern Europe. Mr. Bregulla is responsible for addressing and solving business and technology issues with HP’s global customers and as a result delivering significant business value for both HP and its largest clients. The responsibility includes profitable share of wallet growth based on strategic account planning and management. Key measures of success include technology and business solution leadership as well as executive relationship management.

Previously Mr. Bregulla managed Global Accounts for Industry Vertical Organizations and the global business relationship with one of HP’s top corporate customers. His core Industry expertise resides within Discrete Manufacturing and the Communications, Media and Entertainment Industry, 2 key customers segment for HP’s Enterprise Group.

In his role, he leads global as well as a regional and local account teams who develop and position solutions for Cloud Delivery models, Converged Infrastructure, Security and Information Management while leveraging and representing the entire portfolio strength of HP’s Hardware, Software, Services as well as a select set of strategic partners.

Since joining HP in 1985 from Siemens AG, Volkhard Bregulla has held a series of executive management positions in regional as well as global business units. It included multiple lines of business in the Consulting and Systems Integration Organization of HP as well as global services and technology R&D.

Mr. Bregulla has extensive background in general management of international businesses and finance and has served in the Board of several of HP’s equity investments and as Chairman of the Board of an HP subsidiary.

Mr. Bregulla has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Fachhochschule Nuremberg and a business master’s degree in Finance and Quantitative Methods from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland. In his spare time, he enjoys the family life with his wife and three children;  his passions include motor biking and skiing.

Dr. Burchell is an Expert for McKinsey & Company’s Organization Solutions where he is responsible for business development, delivery of services to senior executives, and supporting team effectiveness. The Organizational Solutions group manages services that address an organization’s people, culture and design opportunities.

Previously, Michael was a corporate vice president at Great Place to Work® Institute, a research and management consultancy best known for producing FORTUNE’s “100 Best Companies to Work for in America.” He was instrumental in developing the Institute's global network, leading consulting services, and providing change management consulting. Michael is the co-author of two books, No Excuses: How You Can Turn Any Workplace into a Great One (2013), and The Great Workplace: How to Build It, How to Keep It, and Why It Matters (2011).

Previous to Great Place to Work®, Michael worked at W.L. Gore & Associates, Inc. in training and organizational development where he supported the enterprise’s operational excellence, leadership development and culture change efforts. Michael received his doctorate from the University of Massachusetts.

A sought after speaker at conferences around the world, he works with senior leaders in positioning workplace culture as a competitive business advantage.

Dennis J. Chapman Sr. is the Founder and President / CEO of The Chapman Group. The Chapman Group is a sales consulting firm that specializes in creating world class Strategic Account Management organizations through the implementation of innovative engagement processes, methodologies, best practices, and metric-based software tools, including unique and proprietary approaches to capturing and utilizing Voice of Customer feedback. Dennis brings over 25+ years of executive level experience in sales, marketing, and business management to his clients in helping them achieve their goals. He is a dynamic, enthusiastic speaker whose ideas and vision consistently inspire and motivate his audiences. Dennis is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts School of Business and is a past member of the SAMA Board of Directors.

David Chapnick is a Senior Consultant and leader in the firm’s Sales and Account Management and Alliance practices, where he has advised F500/G1000 clients across industries including technology, medical device, pharmaceutical and biotechnology, telecom, consumer packaged goods, energy, and healthcare.

David’s Sales and Account Management work has ranged broadly from advising account teams on the development of sales and negotiation strategies for specific accounts and transactions, implementing customer-driven innovation strategies, developing winning responses to RFPs, and establishing Strategic Account Management programs, including processes for gathering customer perspectives on market opportunities, trends, and product needs, launching strategic accounts, and customer segmentation.

David has been a speaker on effective management of strategic customer and alliance partnerships including as chair of the Strategic Alliances Conference, the Heads of Alliance Management Meeting, Strategic Account Management Association Conferences and University, Selling Power, and the Drug Information Association’s annual conference. David's work has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Velocity Magazine, the Journal of Trading Partner Practices, and he is a co-author of a chapter on “Negotiation Systems and Strategies” in the 2008 International Contracts Manual, and Vantage's recently published study on The Value of Pricing Discipline.

David is also an active member of the Vantage Volunteers team which creates volunteering and team-building opportunities for the firm and partners with Greater Boston nonprofit organizations such as the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless, Chill, the Food Project, Cradles to Crayons, Room to Grow, and Massachusetts Audubon.

David is a graduate of Boston University and lives in Portsmouth, NH with his wife, Jennifer, and children, Sierra, Mason, and Sage.

Jeff has coached and trained groups within organizations from 45 minutes to three days in length. His audience size has ranged from five executives around a boardroom table to 1000 people in an auditorium. And, he has done all of this in 6 continents across all industries. A few sample clients include Verizon, PwC, Chicago Bears, Bristol Myers Squibb, ESPN, Corporate Executive Board, TEKsystems, and Tony Robbins.

Kelli Corkins serves as global program manager, Sales Strategy & Programs for Red Hat. In this role, she is responsible for the development and execution of customer insights programs. Prior to her current position, Kelli was part of Red Hat Corporate Marketing, responsible for account based marketing and executive engagement. Kelli first joined Red Hat in 2009 as global sales training program manager to launch Red Hat’s sales methodology and training program.

Prior to joining Red Hat, Kelli served as global sales training consultant for Lenovo where she helped lead the development, implementation and execution of the worldwide sales methodology and training program. Earlier in her career, Kelli spent 10 years with IBM in various roles within the Personal Systems Group in areas of international customer operations, worldwide fulfillment, and manufacturing.

Prior to founding Grease Consulting in 2005, Covington’s corporate career included the paper manufacturing industry where he was VP of Sales and Marketing at Boise Cascade Corporation, and earlier stints in the advertising business in New York. His business background has focused on the customer. Covington has led national direct and indirect sales organizations in the management of customer expectations and the seamless execution of business plans. He is an advocate of critical thinking and clear oral and written communications. Covington served as an officer in the US Naval Reserve. As a social entrepreneur, he founded and directs Minds Matter of Portland, an academic mentoring organization that helps highly-motivated, low-income high school students attend college with financial aid. Covington’s organizational governance experience includes serving as Board Chair with Portland Baroque Orchestra and on the boards of Outward Bound West, Neskowin Valley School and the Portland Racquet Club. Corporate board experience includes Danco Precision Machine and Portco Packaging. Covington holds an undergraduate degree from Williams College and an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley.

Lon Cunninghis is an experienced sales and marketing executive who has spent his career providing strategic and tactical leadership to organizations of all sizes and cultures, and through a myriad of business climates and conditions.

Lon spent the majority of his career at MCI, a leading telecommunications company. He served in a number of roles to help bring about change and growth in various sales, marketing, and training organizations. As Vice President of European Strategic and Government Accounts, Lon drove 20% year-over-year revenue growth of the $150 million region despite bankruptcy of the U.S. corporate parent (WorldCom), with key sales to the United Nations, the London and Swedish Stock Exchanges, IKEA, and The Smith’s Group. As Vice President of Global Accounts, he successfully executed the turnaround of the $400 million Southeast Region, increasing sales by 50% and installs by 300%, with accounts including ADP, Siemens, SunTrust, and Office Depot. As Vice President of Channel Management he led the effort to redesign the $3 billion Mid-Market sales channel, increasing sales productivity by 300% in under two years.

As Vice President and Senior Consultant for Revenue Storm, Lon worked in multiple industries globally to lead revenue acceleration and sales transformation initiatives with companies including IBM, Xerox, NEC, Waste Management, Wipro, Equinix, and Chevron. He helped support an increase of over $3.5 billion in client revenue and coached over 2,500 “Must Win” deals. As Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Smart Wires, Lon helped established the go-to-market strategy and sales acquisition process for the electric utility technology start-up. He built a global sales and marketing team, leading them to a 13-fold sales increase with new clients in the U.S. including PG&E, Minnesota Power, and Central Hudson; EirGrid and RTE in Europe, and Western Power and TransGrid in Australia.

Lon is a graduate of the University of Dayton in Ohio with a B.A. in Communications, and lives in Atlanta, GA. with his family.

Frankie has been with SAMA since the 2008 Annual Conference in Dallas, TX and in the Certification and Training department since May of 2015. A graduate of University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA. in 2000 with a Bachelors of Fine Arts. He enjoys time with his dogs, life partner and friends as well as performing improvisation, playing golf and searching for the best NYC slice of pizza outside of NYC. If you see Frankie at the conference say “hello”. If you want to talk pizza, even better. Frankie resides in Chicago, IL.

Starting his career as a sponsored student in a co-operative education program and acquiring a Dipl.-Ing. diploma in industrial engineering and business management from Fachhochschule Nordakademie, he held different positions in Product Management and Area Sales responsibility in Europe before supporting the start-up of the Global Account Management department as first team member. Key elements of his work are the creation of the GAM methodology, developing the necessary tools and tailoring new products and concepts aiming to start a new paradigm in customer partnership for Fette Compacting. Today, the GAM team takes responsibility for cooperative growth of the business and takes the lead in defining new ways of working, standardization initiatives and launches fleet management programs. Martin is the trusted ambassador for a selection of Top 10 global pharma companies.

For over 20 years, Adrian has been devoted to understanding and applying the principles of successful selling in business. In 2002, Adrian founded Whetstone Inc, to assist Chief Executives and Chief Revenue Officers of mid-sized, B2B corporations create profitable growth by helping them win, keep and grow key accounts. His highly talented team has developed a reputation for leading organizations to innovative and practical solutions that enhance customer value and dramatically increase revenue. Adrian is frequently called upon to advise senior management teams and sales groups on the subjects of sales and corporate strategy, competitive advantage, relationship management and sales excellence.

Ronald E. Davis is Executive Vice President, Head of Customer Management, Zurich Insurance. He has more than 25 years of business experience dealing with many of the world’s largest multi-national companies. Before joining Zurich, Mr. Davis worked for Arkwright/Factory Mutual Insurance Company for 19 years in various positions in Canada and France.

Mr. Davis is Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Spencer Educational Foundation, as well as on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of the Strategic Account Management Association (SAMA). He is on the David Rockefeller Fellows Alumni Committee, and for 2006-2007 he was selected to be a member of the David Rockefeller Fellows Program, which is associated with The Partnership for New York City.

He holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Ottawa’s Carleton University, as well as an MBA from Concordia University in Montreal.

Philippe Delpech leads the world’s largest manufacturer and maintainer of elevators, escalators and moving walkways. The company’s equipment and people are responsible for moving more than 2 billion people each day – the equivalent of the world population every three days. Mr. Delpech has a vision and strategy that are not only transforming his company, but will transform the industry Otis started more than 160 years ago.

Mr. Deren has spent the past 39 years primarily focused on helping companies and customer in the mature and emerging markets find ways to improve their product and/or process development methods. His work has resulted in finding ways to improve their efficiency, reduce development costs or in helping them to develop a competitive advantage. As a process SME, he helps them focus on improving quality, reducing cycle time or purely improving efficiency and execution through the use of enabling technology, process optimization and skill enhancement. He represents the voice of the customer and coach’s and counsel’s improvement into solution development.

Today, Gerry leads a team of Business Development & Consulting professionals across Siemens PLM Software (Americas Zone) focused on helping companies optimize their product innovation and development lifecycles as well as building business cases for product lifecycle management solutions as enabling technology. The scope and focus is on established as well as new and emerging markets.

Mr. Deren also represents Siemens as a participating Advisory Board member in the areas of STEM, University focused engineering and digital manufacturing curriculum and programs and as part of the Stanford/MIT Global Supply Chain consortium. He has taken part as a speaker on topics related to business process improvement, global supply chain collaboration and product lifecycle management.

Mr. Deren began his career in 1972 in the automotive industry in systems/electro-mechanical product development. He joined Computervision in 1980 as a systems engineer before he became part of a team that invented product lifecycle management business consulting. He joined Siemens to develop their business development organization in 1998.

Melinda is currently a Strategic Relationship Manager working with Deere’s largest Ag customers. She has spent her 20 year career with John Deere Financial in a variety of management roles in Accounting, Pricing, Marketing and Credit. As a Strategic Relationship Manager she spends time with Ag customers that are continuing to grow their operations and want a central point of contact within John Deere as they manage their equipment fleets. Melinda grew up on a farm in southern Iowa and has a BSBA and MBA from Drake University.

Diogo is the SKF group head for the metal industry and also director for the corporate account ArcelorMittal. Has 20 years of experience as sales, marketing and business development professional. He has a strong intercultural and international experience managing implementation of global business growth strategies on both OEMs and end users, directly and through indirect channels (industrial distribution).

President of RAIN Group, John E. Doerr is a world-renowned expert in sales and sales training. Bestselling author of multiple books, including Rainmaking Conversations and Insight Selling, John delivers dozens of seminars each year for clients around the globe on various sales topics, including strategic account management

As a leader and rainmaker, John himself has sold millions of dollars of products and services to the world’s most prestigious organizations, including his own strategic accounts.

Cor Dubois leads various sales and marketing initiatives within the company’s global account teams. Focus areas are: go-to-market, strategy development, customer engagement and relationship management. Cor works intensively with service providers and manages global marketing and business growth projects across business groups and regional units.

Prior to joining Alcatel-Lucent, he was Managing Director Europe for MarketBridge, a consulting firm based in Washington DC and London specialized in Go-to-Market strategy, multi channel integration and marketing and sales integration. Cor has worked at Royal Dutch Shell, United Brands/Chiquita and held senior positions in general management and marketing and sales with: Rothschild, BMG/Bertelsmann and LVMH.

Cor Dubois holds degrees from the Breda Business School in the Netherlands and the INSEAD AMP Graduate School of Business in Fontainebleau, France and Kellogg School of Management in Chicago.

After a remarkable 35-year career with Schneider Electric, Harvey Dunham serves as the Managing Director of Business Development for the Strategic Account Management Association (SAMA), a nonprofit professional association based in Chicago.

During Harvey’s time at Schneider Electric, Harvey was a Strategic Account Manager (SAM), managed SAMs, lead countries from whom SAMs needed local support and supported SAMs in developing solutions for their global strategic accounts, both inside and outside the United States.

Harvey most recently held the position as the Global Solutions VP, Buildings Business, where he led the global Life Sciences, Retail and Sales Transformation teams globally to help in achieving Schneider’s vision of becoming the global leader in energy management. While in this position he led a team which piloted and deployed a new solution and consultative selling methodology which trained over 100 people and developed $1.9 billion backlog in new opportunities.

Harvey served as Country President in Poland as well as South Africa, where he had responsibilities over sales, business development, project management and P&L management.

Thanks to his impressive and long career at Schneider Electric, as well as military service, Harvey’s areas of expertise include negotiation, presentation skills, facilitation and training, coaching and collaboration as well as process improvement.

Bill Eckstrom is a business owner, executive, entrepreneur, outdoorsman, Husker fan, cyclist, student, husband, and father. His primary passion can be stated in one word: Growth. More specifically how coaches, leaders, and managers impact the growth and performance of individuals and teams. This passion ignited Bill to found the EcSell Institute, a research based organization that works with leaders in sales departments to help them understand, elevate and measure their impact on team performance. EcSell’s science and programming on the role of the leader as a coach has been changing the behaviors, activities and performance of organizational teams around the world. Bill is a TEDx presenter, has been featured in industry magazines, he is a renowned keynote speaker, author of countless research based articles, e-books and whitepapers. He and an EcSell colleague are also in the final stage of publishing a book to share the company’s findings and research on the behaviors, activities and financial impact of leaders and managers on business teams. As a result of his company’s experiences and research findings, Bill has been sharing best practices and formulas for peak performance to audiences across the world for many years. He has presented to hundreds of groups ranging in size from 5-2,500 on topics such as: The Science of High Performing Teams; The Evolution of Sales Team Performance; High Impact Coaching; The Obsolete Manager. And many more! Growth is also woven into the fabric of Bill’s philanthropic life, evidenced by his involvement in therapy dog work. He and their Labrador, Aspen, are becoming heavily involved in working with the elderly, hospital patients and anywhere the presence of Aspen’s wagging tail and soft soul brings a smile. Bill’s home is Lincoln, NE with his amazing wife Kerstin. Together they have three beautiful children, Will Jr., Claire and Maddie. Bill Eckstrom

Mark Eganhouse leads Wells Enterprises' Supply Chain team as Vice President, leveraging a vast amount of supply chain knowledge acquired throughout his 27 years in the foodservice industry and over 15 years of leadership experience.

Mr. Eganhouse and his team collaborate with customers, suppliers, and industry partners to create a synergistic, best-in-class procurement organization that coordinates sourcing strategies, execution initiatives, and supplier management.

Teri is a global sales, marketing & business development professional with 15 plus years’ experience with multimillion dollar energy related companies. In her role as a Strategic Account Manager she manages all aspects of a key strategic account. Prior to that she served as Vice President of Marketing & Business Development for MCKENZIE COMPRESSED AIR SOLUTIONS.

Ryan is the SVP, Global Sales for Georgia-Pacific responsible for North American and International GP PRO sales, sales strategy, and sales capability teams.

He has been at Georgia Pacific since 2008, where he was also responsible for GP PRO channel sales and channel development capabilities which included channel marketing, category management, and joint business planning. Additionally, he led sales strategy, emerging business, and eCommerce sales for GP consumer products.

Prior to joining Georgia Pacific, Ryan spent the majority of his career at PepsiCo in the Frito Lay and QTG divisions leading customer and capability teams in addition to multiple sales responsibilities at Hormel Foods.

Ryan is a graduate of the University of Georgia and has a passion for coaching youth lacrosse, basketball, and singing and playing guitar whenever he can with a local rock band. He and his wife Kristi reside in Marietta, GA with their 3 children.

Marty Finkle, CPT, renowned industry expert and sought-after speaker, leads the team of Scotwork NA negotiators, who work with more than 100 companies in various industries. Through his work on negotiation strategy, process and behaviors, many organizations have achieved an exceptional return on investment, while participants have been able to adapt the skills to other workplace and personal situations.

Before joining Scotwork in 2003, Marty held various sales and executive roles, where he helped increase revenues for firms including Lever Brothers, Franklin Quest, AT&T, General Mill, and Oxford Health Plans. To a large degree, Marty’s success comes from his ability to think strategically and holistically about issues in order to develop long-term solutions. His strengths include creating and exploring ideas for clients as well as for Scotwork, which have helped maximize their potential. Throughout his career, Marty has been able to develop meaningful connections with customers while helping them nurture their own relationships.

Marty received his Bachelors in Business Administration and Communication from Rochester Institute of Technology and earned his Masters in Human Resource Education from Fordham University. He is one of fewer than 1,000 Certified Performance Technologists worldwide.

Ross began his career as a registered nurse in the late 1980s, spending the next 14 years working clinically, in nursing management and nursing education in Australia and the Middle East, within public and private institutions. Eight years ago Ross embarked upon a new career within Medtronic as Director of Corporate Accounts ANZ. Ross is personally responsible for accounts, including global healthcare giant Ramsay Healthcare, encompassing all business units with Medtronic, In December 2014 Ross gained certification in Strategic Account Management through SAMA University.

Ross has been active with consultants Gordian business on Strategic Account workshops with for Varian, Sanofi Australia and Sanofi Malaysia.

Ross has a passion for Value Creation and was be a panel member for the Medical Technology Association of Australia conference in 2016. More recently has been instrumental in writing and presenting “Value Creation” workshops with Medtronic businesses.

Ross is a certified Scrum Master and is working with a dedicated Medtronic team to build Scrum discipline within the sales environment.

Jim Ford is the Global Head of Client Development for ARCADIS, a global leader in design and engineering consultancy for natural and built assets, based out of firm’s Chicago office. Joining the firm in 2016, Jim has oversight for the sales and business development function at ARCADIS, working globally across the company’s eight operating divisions.

Prior to joining ARCADIS, Jim worked in private equity, where he focused on organizational turnarounds and building sustainable growth and shareholder value. In 2013, Jim was appointed to the role of Executive Vice President Commercial Operations, TestAmerica--the leader in environmental testing. In this role, Jim led TestAmerica’s strategic account, field sales and marketing teams as well as providing the strategic direction for the company in support of its preparation for divestiture.

Prior to TestAmerica, Jim worked for Nalco, an Ecolab Company for 22 years. Ecolab is the global leader in sustainability solutions for water, hygiene, energy technologies and related services. Prior to his departure, Jim was Vice President of Global Strategic Accounts within the largest division of Nalco, an Ecolab company. Jim led the integration effort for Strategic Clients during the growth merger of Ecolab and Nalco, developing the growth strategy to deliver $500M in growth from the merger.

For over 25 years, Kevin Gagan has held key leadership positions in the management consulting industry, and since 2004, he has been in senior management at Lee Hecht Harrison (LHH), the world’s leading talent development and transition company. LHH helps organizations simplify the transformation of their talent and workforces to accelerate business results, and helps individuals build their careers within their companies, or in transition to new opportunities.

Beginning in 2006 Kevin led LHH’s Strategy & Practice Development group which has driven LHH’s extensive global growth, and since 2014 he has led LHH’s Global Sales group which is responsible for all aspects of the client experience for LHH’s largest global accounts. Kevin sets sales strategy for all global and local global efforts and also acts as Executive Sponsor for many of LHH’s largest global clients.

In his current role, John has global leadership and sets the direction for the Global Strategic Accounts Program across the Process Group. The Global Strategic Accounts Program focuses on those Accounts that are driving growth at multiples of the total Process Management business and have established a desire to collaborate with Emerson to drive increased value and business results enabled thru the Technology, Products, Services, Processes, and People of Emerson Process Management.

Under John’s Leadership, The Global Strategic Accounts Program has grown by a Growth Factor of 5X over past 5 years with the same number of total Strategic Accounts and now represents over 45% of the Total Process Group Sales. The Program was recognized in 2012 as the SAMA [Strategic Account Management Association] Global Strategic Account Program of the Year [POY] Award Winner.

John is a member of the Process Executive Group [Large-PEG], Group Global Sales Leadership Team, Sales Council, and participates actively in setting direction for sales processes and as an active Executive Sponsor & member of Executive Steering Groups with multiple Strategic Accounts. John is active in the Emerson Global Leadership Institute where he serves as a Resident Executive and Guest Speaker by actively coaching & mentoring the next generation of Leaders in Emerson Process Management.

As Principal and Senior Vice President of Marketing for Walker, Gibbons has global responsibility for definition, branding, and promotion of the company and its solutions.

Gibbons has published and/or contributed to a number of articles, papers, and blogs on customer intelligence topics and has a regular column in CRM Magazine. He has been a featured speaker at a wide range of conferences, and has produced a series of educational events for customer experience leaders. He is also one of the primary developers of Face Value – an award-winning, patented educational exercise that unveils the business impact of customer-focused decision making. Gibbons came to Walker in 2000. Previously he held product management and marketing leadership roles in the publishing and online recruitment industries. He earned his bachelor’s degree in industrial design from the University of Cincinnati and his master’s degree in business administration from Butler University.

Kenny Gillett graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management from George Fox University. For almost two decades he has worked in multiple perspectives of the business process, including: operations, procurement, sales management, general management, marketing, supply chain, e-commerce, and strategic accounts. During that time, he has led business units ranging from $20 million to $125 million in revenue.

In strategic account management, Kenny has organized initiatives that integrate every business unit within the company to align with customer and operational strategy. Kenny’s passion in business is to lead personnel and organizational performance that results in profitable partnerships throughout the supply chain, and to use those outcomes to support community outreach.

Kenny lives in Oregon with his wife and three kids. He enjoys sports, learning, and appreciating the beautiful Northwest with his family.

Francis Gouillart is President and co-founder of the Experience Co-Creation Partnership (ECC Partnership), a consulting firm built to implement co-creative management processes and organizational capabilities with corporate clients around the world.

Francis is considered a leading authority on the topics of strategy, innovation, transformation, and capabilities-building and is a recognized speaker, lecturer, and advisor on Experience Co-Creation, Blue Ocean Strategy, and Organizational Transformation. He works across the United States, Europe, and Asia, and has experience in most industries. Francis has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and Fortune, among other publications, and has been featured on CNBC. He is currently working with global management consulting firm PwC Advisory to use co-creation concepts and methods to transform enterprise operations and business models across industries globally.

Ron Hubsher is an international acclaimed and recognized sales and negotiation expert. He is author of the acclaimed and ground-breaking book “Closing Time: The 7 Immutable Laws of Sales Negotiation” which is based on his research of world class organizations.

Mr. Hubsher is CEO of the Sales Optimization Group (www.salesog.com), an international sales, strategic account and negotiation training and consulting organization. The company assists clients in health services, medical devices, financial services; technology, professional services, business services and manufacturing accelerate sales by using its patented sales and negotiation methodologies and tools. Some of their notable clients include Walgreens, Kimberly-Clark Healthcare, WebMD, Oracle, Google, Adobe, Morgan Stanley, Walgreens, Prudential, ADP, Sun Microsystems, Comcast, Thomson Reuters, Columbia Business School and others.

He is the architect of numerous proven patented processes and methodologies to optimize and accelerate sales and negotiation success. His patents are approved and registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

He is regularly asked to participate, contribute, present and share his sales, strategic account management and negotiation thought leadership at many conferences and with publications world-wide including the BusinessWeek, LA Times, Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, America Marketing Association, Columbia Business School, Wharton Alumni Association, University of Chicago Graduate School of Business Sales Leadership Roundtable, CBS Executive Speaker Series, National Association of Small Business Investment Companies, The Indus Enterprise, Marketing Executives Network Group , Webex, CRM Radio, CRM Guru, Professional Society of Sales and Marketing Training and others.

He has over 25 years of strategic account management experience. Prior to the Sales Optimization Group, Mr. Hubsher was in sales management at a leading on demand CRM provider UpShot (acquired by Siebel, acquired by Oracle) where he helped hundreds of companies accelerate sales, strategic account management and strategic account negotiation performance. A former Management Consultant with Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Mr. Hubsher has worked with and provided thought leadership for Fortune 500 companies on their strategic account management, negotiation and business strategies.

Mr. Hubsher holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a Bachelor of Science degree in Operations Research from Columbia University.

His presentations are customized, interactive, informative, entertaining and practical. Participants leave with immediately actionable ideas to implement and put into action immediately. Payback for his presentation is usually achieved many times over within a matter of days.

Jonathan Hughes is a partner at Vantage Partners, and head of the firm’s Sourcing and Supplier Management practice. As an expert in supply chain management, strategic alliances, negotiation, and change management, he has worked with leading companies across a range of industries in North and South America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Africa to develop and implement new supply chain and go-to-market strategies that leverage internal and external collaboration. Jon is the lead author of Vantage's global studies on customer-supplier negotiations, customer-supplier collaboration, and SRM best practices. He is also the lead author of the chapter on Negotiation Systems and Strategies in the 2008 International Contracts Manual. Jon is a frequent keynote speaker on supply chain management, strategic alliances, and negotiation, and has been published in a variety of leading business publications including the Harvard Business Review, Global Business and Organizational Excellence, The Journal of Strategic Alliances, CPO Agenda, Supply Chain Asia Magazine, Inside Supply Management, CIO Magazine, The Journal of Trading Partner Practices, Supply Chain Strategy, and The Outsourcing Journal.

Dr. Huizinga is an internist and leader in achieving clinical excellence. Dr. Huizinga is the clinical leader in Premier’s Information Technology Services ensuring that Premier’s information technology products and services met the evolving needs of healthcare systems.

Prior to joining Premier, she was the Medical Director for the Center of Health Promotion and Disease Management at Vanderbilt University, Vice President for Quality at LifePoint Hospitals, Associate at McKinsey & Company's Washington, DC, office, and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at The Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Huizinga is the author of over 40 peer reviewed articles and chapters and is frequently invited to give lectures.

Ken Hutchins has been growing companies and industries for over 10 years. He earned his Masters in Business Administration with a focus on Strategic Leadership, from Dominican University of California, in San Rafael, California, and is Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certified. Some of his notable achievements include:

• 43% monthly revenue growth for a solar finance company sustained over more than 14 months • Directing a start up in the medical device space to over $400,000 a month in revenue in less than three months • Reorganizing Fortune 500 operations teams to be more effective and productive • Reorganizing multiple sales organizations resulting in an average of 65% growth of both revenue and earnings

Ken is currently the Head of Business Development, Sales & Marketing for DPMS, Inc. dba Danco Machine, Inc. In his spare time, he is finishing his first book on the subject of sales growth, organization, and strategy. Ken lives with his wife and one year old son in Dublin, California.

John led the launch of QSCC, the independent purchasing co-op that serves the Wendy’s system, in January 2010. He works closely with QSCC’s Board of Directors and Wendy’s senior leadership, ensuring that his team accomplishes everything needed to exceed member and Brand expectations.

John’s range of executive experience -- including supply, distribution, procurement, and operations -- gives him powerful insight into every link of the supply chain and a keen understanding of how they interact. Most recently, he served in the supplier and manufacturing community as EVP for the Commercial Division of Nice-Pak/PDII, the global expert in preventing infection and cross-contamination from bacteria in foodservice and healthcare settings.

Previously, John served as Chief Procurement Officer of U.S. Foodservice, one of the country’s largest broad-line foodservice distributors. He also served as SVP of Purchasing, Distribution, and Logistics for Unified Foodservice Purchasing Co-op, LLC (the co-op for Yum! Brands), overseeing the procurement and distribution interests of franchise and corporate stores across A&W, KFC, Long John Silver’s, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell.

John serves on the boards of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption and GS1. He also co-chairs the Supply Chain Sub-Committee of the National Council of Chain Restaurants.

As the Segment President for the Food and Beverage Industry for Schneider Electric, Mike Jamieson leads the global sales and marketing efforts, ensuring the company establishes itself as the leader in helping manufacturers and equipment suppliers to achieve Sustainable and Efficient Food and Beverage operations via its broad portfolio of Electrical, Automation and Software solutions and services.

Mike joined Schneider Electric in March 2015 and is located in Marktheidenfeld in Germany, however is originally from a town called Arbroath in Scotland. Prior to joining Schneider Electric, Mike worked for five years for a German software company that specializes in Breweries and Dairies called ProLeiT. He was responsible for Global Sales and Marketing and operations within its 10 international subsidiaries, including running the North American business as its CEO.

Previous to that, Mike Jamieson held a variety of positions at Rockwell Automation over a 12 year period. Jamieson held the position of Global Sales and Marketing Vice President for the Beverage Industry before going on to take responsibility for the sales and marketing strategy and execution for the Consumer Packaged Goods segment within Rockwell Automation. He was located in Brussels Belgium during his tenure.

His working career however started in manufacturing, having enjoyed 10 years working for Crown Cork & Seal out of Oxford in England, responsible for the Project Management of large greenfield production facilities implemented in Asia Pacific and Eastern Europe.

Mike holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from the Strathtay University in Dundee, Scotland and an MBA from the Open University Business School.

Ryan holds over 17 years of sales experience both as a sales professional and as a leader. In 2003 he began his career with WBM, a western Canadian information technology solutions provider. In his role as an Account Manager, Ryan was instrumental in the execution of a progressive selling model that saw the transformation of WBM from an SMB reseller of technology hardware, to an Enterprise focused IT services partner. In moving his clients from strangers, to trusted partners and ultimately building WBM into a position of strategic ally, WBM today delivers on strategic business outcomes within some of the most progressive organizations in Canada, across industries that include energy, transportation, and healthcare.

Today, in his current role as Director of Commercial Partnerships, Ryan leads a team of 9 Enterprise Account Managers tasked with understanding the strategic initiatives of their clients, and ensuring that technology recommendations are aligned with the corporate direction of a growing client community. In addition, Ryan is a member of the WBM Strategic Leadership Team, working to chart to course for the company as it has grown into one of Canada’s largest IT Solutions providers, ranked at number 40 on the MSPMentor501 list of the world’s largest managed IT Services organizations.

Ryan brings a passion and level of enthusiasm to everything he is involved with. When not at activities in Saskatoon with his family and four children, Ryan keeps busy volunteering his time to various charities and with service organizations in the city.

David Jenne is currently the Vice President Global Procurement for Benjamin Moore & Co., responsible for over $750M in total spend across the corporation. Dave joined Benjamin Moore in November 2013 to focus on team growth, implementing best practices and consolidating spend across the company.

Dave came to Benjamin Moore from GAF Materials Corporation where he spent 8 years as Executive Director, Raw Materials Purchasing. He was responsible for overseeing over $1.0B in raw materials and energy purchases with a focus on building strategic alliances, joint development projects, and new business opportunities with supplier partners.

Previous roles include Director of Energy for IMC Global, Manager of Purchasing Operations for Witco Corporation and Plant Engineer for Westwood Chemical Corporation.

Dave served in the United States Navy as an officer on board a nuclear submarine stationed in the Pacific, where he had the opportunity to spend four months at the North Pole.

Dave received his BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Rochester, and his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. He is a Certified Professional in Supply Management (CPSM) and a Lifetime Certified Purchasing Manager (C.P.M.) with the Institute for Supply Management, a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Tau Beta Pi, and an Eagle Scout.

Having been with DPDHL for 41 years, Chris has worked in all areas of logistics. The last 20 years have been in industry customer relationship management/leadership. In 2012 he became a SAMA board member and in 2017 Chris retired from DHL and accepted the role of Director of Membership and Acquisition at the Strategic Account Management Association.

Chris’ passions and interests are heavy equipment manufacturing, mining, aviation, and conglomerates.

Born and raised in the Chicagoland area, Chris has three sons with his wife of 31 years. The two oldest are now working in logistics and the youngest is in his first year of high school. For fun he enjoys distance running, reading, travelling, and landscape design.

Mike Johnson is a Corporate Account Manager with SAMA. He is a Chicago native with a degree in Finance from the University of Illinois at Chicago. In addition to his 20 years’ experience in the commodities industry, Mike is a 15-year veteran of the Chicago Improv scene. Mike has performed at such venerable institutions like Second City’s training Center, iO Theater, the Annoyance Theater, CIC Theater and The Playground Theater. Mike is currently an instructor at iO Theater.

Craig Jones is a sales management veteran, offering 30 years of invaluable marketplace experience in sales and consulting to the Fortune 500 corporate environment. As a Management Consultant, Craig uses his experience in sales, sales management and sales coaching/consulting to help organizations institutionalize best practices for their customer engagement teams.

Craig has played a key role for Performance Methods in designing, developing and delivering such programs as Executive Level Positioning, Management Coaching, Strategic Account Management, Customer-Specific Value Propositions, Collaborative Planning and Sales Process Design. Craig’s client work has brought him into direct contact with corporations such as Assurant, AT&T, Citi, Experian, GE, Hilton Worldwide, Honeywell, HP, IBM, Panasonic, SAP, SAS, Staples, SunGard TaylorMade, Verizon and Zurich.

Craig is a contributing member of the Strategic Account Management Association (SAMA) where he has been a speaker on such topics as: Keys to Effective Strategic Account Planning Creating and Delivering Customer-Specific Value Propositions The Impact of Collaborative Planning with Strategic Accounts

Prior to PMI, Craig held various sales, sales management and leadership positions in the technology industries such as VP Sales, Strategic Account Manager, Sales Manager, Account Executive and Customer Account Manager.

Craig is credentialed through the International Coach Federation as a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) and is a SAMA Certification Fellow where he certifies Strategic Account Managers.

Craig graduated from the University of Florida with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration. He, his wife, and their two daughters reside in Atlanta, GA.

David Joy has 20 years of global sales and marketing experience in HVAC and related industries with Emerson, Daikin, and Danfoss. David holds a BS in Marketing and an MS Degree in Business Management. David lives in Frederick, Maryland and is currently Global Account Director for Danfoss.

Denise Juliano has worked for MSD, an innovative, global healthcare leader that is committed to improving health and well-being around the world for 30 years. Her current role within the global health organization is to manage all enterprise efforts with one of Merck's top customers, as part of an executive management initiative to transform the company from product and geographic focus into a leading customer centric organization. In previous roles, Denise has worked in various areas within the Commercial Organization including Global and US Marketing, US Sales, leading a large team of Business Managers, Medical Group Account Executives and Customer Team Representatives in the Greater NYC/CT Region. She has extensive experience in Account Management, leading both National Account Executives and Customer Managers in Managed Markets for over 10 years. Denise graduated magna cum laude, with a degree in Health Science from Seton Hall University. She also obtained her Master’s degree from East Stroudsburg University with a degree in Exercise Physiology/Cardiac Rehabilitation. Denise has also participated in the Executive Education at the Harvard Business School of Harvard University and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She was interviewed and featured for her work with Premier Healthcare Alliance in Beyond the Sales Process: 12 Proven Strategies for a Customer-Driven World. She currently serves on the Board of SAMA and has achieved her SAMA certification in 2016.

Mark Katz leads strategic platforms related to Commercial Excellence and associated sales and sales operations functions within the Johnson Controls Operating System across the company. This includes all processes, technology and talent management systems to establish and sustain a unified approach to sales management disciplines, strategic account management, sales force development, organizational capacity and effectiveness.

Mark has 24 years of professional selling and sales management experience with increasing responsibilities. He has a strong track record of achieving results in growth and customer satisfaction. In addition, he has P&L experience and was previously responsible for $2B business with 9,000 employees.

Tom Kealey started his career in industrial distribution while in high school in 1967 in the Philadelphia area. After college he re-entered the distribution business with a Bearing distributor that offered a training program and an opportunity to enter the selling profession. This training served to be the basis for a business background that opened doors for self employment.

He started his own company in 1981 in Lancaster,Pa selling industrial replacement equipment to industry in the Mid-state.In 1983 he started IDC-USA, the nations first bearing cooperative, for independent distributors, headquartered in Indianapolis,In. Serving as the cooperatives first president,the co-op now serves the U.S. and Canadian markets with over 200 companies.

He has served on numerous councils helping to improve the channel strategies for the manufacturer and distributor partners.

Brian spent over 12 years focusing on the strategies, processes, and technologies of Differential Value Proposition (DVP) and Customer Relationship Management. He worked in many industries including telecommunications, finance, insurance, health care, building materials, and technology. As a result, he has extensive practical experience in general management, eCommerce, B2B marketing and sales, and change management. Brian holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a BS in Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

With over two decades of international consulting experience, LaVon Koerner is recognized worldwide as a leading expert in diagnosing and transforming sales and marketing organizations. LaVon passionately believes that companies and people can tap systematic disciplines and rigorous analysis to unleash profitable revenues and professionalize the business of sales.

Since co-founding Revenue Storm in 2001, LaVon remains zealous in his pursuit to provide organizations a comprehensive suite of proven tools and techniques that drive profitable revenue growth. As Chief Revenue Officer, LaVon helps organizations achieve revenue acceleration through demand creation and reap immediate, sustainable gains.

Prior to co-founding Revenue Storm, LaVon spent fifteen years with Holden Corporation, ultimately as its president. LaVon developed Holden’s core training methodology, which has been installed in hundreds of organizations worldwide. Called upon as both a thought leader and coach, LaVon traveled the globe to help organizations uncover the true cost of sales.

A major portion of LaVon’s work involves evaluating and assisting under-leveraged sales and marketing organizations and analyzing market dynamics in a wide array of industries. As a result, he has helped create sales processes that reduce the cost of sales while increasing revenue through aggressive market share acquisition.

LaVon has been privileged to help many of today’s Fortune 500 companies achieve sales excellence, including ABB, HP, IBM, Schneider Electric, TCS, and Wipro. He is uniquely positioned at the forefront of the design and installation of sales and marketing methodologies.

A 25-year veteran of the software industry and the founder of Revegy, Mark is responsible for the strategic vision of the company and its solutions, which bring innovative technology to the discipline and practice of key account planning and management. At Revegy, he works with world-class organizations like SAS Institute, Roche, Oracle, Ellie Mae and more to empower highly successful strategic account programs focused on customer centricity, co-creation, alignment and revenue growth.

Anjali Kumar is a former Google executive and the Founding General Counsel and Head of Social Innovation at Warby Parker, a transformative lifestyle brand offering designer eyewear at a revolutionary price while leading the way for socially-conscious businesses. Prior to joining Warby Parker, Kumar was Senior Counsel at Google, where she was a commercial and product attorney on areas ranging from Google X to advertising technology to YouTube. Kumar discusses innovation, social responsibility and “transforming the norm,” sharing the lessons she learned on making an impact while working for two of the most disruptive companies of the past decade.

Axel J. Leichum is a partner at Blue Canyon Partners and serves on the firm’s Executive Council. He has been turning insights into actionable strategies for clients for nearly 15 years. His clients span a wide variety of industries and markets, ranging from IT hardware and software to wholesale distribution to process control and beyond. Axel has written and contributed to a number of articles and white papers, ranging from adjacent markets to pricing strategy. He also has been a guest speaker at numerous business events on topics such as adjacent markets, strategic pricing, customer experience, and segmentation.

Lisa has worn many hats in her 31 years with Hilton, but she currently serve as Vice President, Global Strategic Account Management and Intermediary Group Sales. She and her teams aim to drive incremental growth for our business across Hilton’s portfolio of more than 4,300 properties. Since beginning her career in 1984 as a guest service agent at Hilton New York’s front desk, she has steadily moved up the sales ladder, ultimately joining Hilton’s corporate team. In the process, she became familiar with sales and catering, worldwide business travel sales, marketing, international sales and strategic account management. This cross-training through Hilton’s sales segments armed her with a holistic understanding of Hilton sales, which in turn, equipped her to provide a higher level of strategy and guidance to her team and her clients.

Eric Martin is VP, Customer Experience Marketing, at SAP North America. In this role Eric is responsible for leading the North American Account-Based Marketing program; strategic events and sponsorships; digital and social marketing strategy; and content marketing.

Previously, Eric led Partner and Channel Marketing at SAP North America. Prior to SAP, Eric held marketing leadership roles in professional services firms Deloitte and The Hackett Group.

Eric earned his BA and MBA from Villanova University, and for the past 10 years he has taught a Marketing course within Villanova’s MBA program as adjunct faculty. He has been a speaker at the Sirius Decisions Summit, the ITSMA Marketing Vision Conference, and the Marketing Sherpa Summit. Eric’s 25-year career has been focused on B2B Marketing, with a concentration in enterprise software and related services. He lives outside of Philadelphia with his wife and two children.

As a senior vice president and a strategic account manager, McAllister is responsible for ensuring customer intelligence is being used as effectively as possible to drive bottom line business results for Walker clients. Based near San Diego, her primary focus is working with current and potential clients in the western part of the United States to maximize the strategic impact customer intelligence can have in their organizations. McAllister was previously senior vice president of business development.

McAllister joined Walker in 1991, and worked in a variety of client service roles through 1998. She then served as vice president of inside sales and marketing at telstreet.com – an e-tailer of wireless phones and service – before returning to Walker in 2000 as a member of the business development team. McAllister earned her bachelor's degree in marketing from Indiana University and her master's of business administration from Butler University.

Will McGinnis is the National Sr. Sales Trainer for the vAuto National Sales Team. In this role, he ensures customers have access to real-time market information on inventory management and pricing strategies and provides coaching, mentoring and training to the National Sales team. Will is passionate about the automotive industry and is a recognized authority on a variety of automotive industry subjects, with a principal focus on vehicle inventory management best practices. He shares his knowledge through speaking engagements, writing for Driving Sales, and active social media participation in industry groups. Will began his automotive retail journey in 2002, selling cars for a dealer group in Baltimore, MD. He has since held a variety of sales roles that helped dealers address website management, SEO/SEM, inventory management and CRM needs. He has been fortunate to develop business on the vendor-to-vendor level with companies that include Autotrader, CarFax, Cars.com, BlackBook and eBay. Will resides in Baltimore with his wife, son and Basset hound.

Jaime started with Medtronic as a territory manager in June 2006. From there he worked his way up to Senior Product Manager CRDM High Power Devices and for the last 6 years has served as the Director of Corporate Accounts S/W Region.

Prior to joining Medtronic, Jamie held a variety of positions in the healthcare industry. In addition to being certified under SAMA’s CSAM program, he is also a Certified Scrum Master, and holds a Masters of Business Administration from the Swinburne University of Technology.

Khaled Metwally is working as a sales Manager in Marketing and sales, Corporate segment in Orange - Egypt and holds more than 14 years extensive experience in the Sales Field, Telecome, Life insurance and Banking Services. Furthermore, he holds an MBA in Marketing & Sales and certified in SPIN selling & advanced negotiation and problem solving. He was just certified as SPMS trainer (Sales performance management system) by Sales performance international organization & Orange ELOB. Also, he is currently preparing his executive coaching certification. Khaled`s preferred quote is: "If it is to be, It is up to me” the power and motivation always lies within us just waiting to be triggered.

Karen has a thirty five year career in the food industry in Research and Development as well as Quality Control at General Mills, Yoplait, and Nabisco Foods and currently Vice President of Research and Development for the Consumer Foods Strategic Business Unit of the J M Smucker Company. Responsible for all R&D activities to meet current as well as long term growth plans through new item introductions, packaging and process innovation, culinary innovation and training, as well as profit improvement using new technologies for the following product brands: Smucker’s, Jif Knott’s, Dickinson’s, Uncrustables, Hungry Jack, Pillsbury, Martha White, White Lily, Robin Hood, Crisco, in the categories owned by the company in North America. Karen graduated from Ohio State University with a Bachelor of Food Science and from Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, with an MBA in Marketing. Karen is an active volunteer within the industry serving on the board for Industrial Research Institute, The Ohio State University College of Agriculture Food and Environmental Sciences Advisory Board, and the Ohio Agriculture Research and Development Center.

Chris is Director of Global Initiatives at Holden Advisors with over 25 years of experience in sales tactics and strategy development; sales management consulting; marketing alignment; sales process and performance improvement to drive price, profit and growth. She has been devoted to marquis brands in healthcare (including PBMs), logistics, transportation, office imaging, professional services, data information services and the manufacturing industries resulting in measurable increased performance. Specifically, Chris has worked globally with clients to drive change; launch new products; design and deliver client annual sales meetings; integrate sales and marketing functions around a common go-to-market strategy; enhance field coaching; optimize value propositions with improved consultative selling skills initiatives; develop sales processes to boost negotiating power and certify scores of client trainers.

Prior to joining Holden Advisors, Chris spent over a decade at Huthwaite as Director of Global Accounts with a strong focus of delivering outstanding value with diverse, globally-based teams and distribution networks. She is known for her passion and enthusiasm as well as her ability to connect key learning points to the business world.

Working for more than three decades with OEM’s, End Users and Channel Partners, Bill has demonstrated his talent at understanding customer needs and how to deploy resources to identify and capture customer value. For the last decade, Bill has been the principle architect for the industrial aftermarket and channel strategy for the worlds largest manufacturer of bearings, SKF, Bill has been able to integrate his knowledge of Strategic Account selling, field sales strategies and customer value propositions. An acknowledged industry leader Bill has authored more than 25 articles, presented at SAMA and was a guest lecturer at London Business School. Understanding value chains and how to capture them for mutual gain is where he enjoys working with and leading collaborative teams.

International Strategic Business Development > International New Growth Ventures and Megatrend projects Managing International Strategic Executive Relationships & Customer Inspired Innovation 3M Global Customer Innovation Centers (54 sites) > Brand , Design, Vision & Strategy (Playbook) 3M IOT world Forum Relationship Director for 3M - Nobel Prize Partnership

Global Sales Talent Manager Global Key Account Development MEA Talent Development Manager MEA Sales Excellence Learning and Development MEA Strategic Business Development MEA Lean Six Sigma Commercialization Coach

Dave is a well-recognized thought leader in B2B services and solutions marketing. For more than 20 years, he has led the way in defining, documenting, and inspiring excellence with the ITSMA global community. Dave oversees all ITSMA strategy, partnerships, and international operations, and guides the ITSMA team in delivering a broad suite of research, education, advisory, and community services to help member companies improve marketing, sales, and business results. Dave helped pioneer the discipline of Account-Based Marketing (ABM) in the early 2000s and is co-author of the forthcoming book, A Practitioner’s Guide to ABM: Accelerating Growth in Strategic Accounts (Kogan Page, March 2017).

Prior to joining ITSMA in 1995, Dave held senior-level field positions with Oracle Corporation and Apple Computer, responsible for marketing products and services to commercial and government accounts. Earlier, Dave was a senior analyst with The Ledgeway Group, where he authored Ledgeway’s first “Service Trends and Forecast” study. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Denison University and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School, where he concentrated in Marketing and Corporate Strategy. Dave is a former President of the Alcott Toastmasters Club and an alumni interviewer for Kellogg’s MBA program.

Shân Norman is a specialist in the relocation industry focusing on Strategic Account Management, having been in the field since 1989, and has held positions of increasing responsibility throughout her career. She joined Crown World Mobility, a privately held global company in 55+ countries, 2001 and is currently Vice President of Client Services, focusing on the largest Crown World Mobility clients and leading the Global Account Executive team.

Jim is the Sales Director of National Accounts at Georgia-Pacific and is responsible for hospitality sales at GP PRO.

He has been at Georgia-Pacific since March 2005, where he was also responsible for GP PRO National Account sales in other verticals including manufacturing, high traffic, transportation and managed services segments.

Prior to joining Georgia-Pacific, Jim spent a decade with Marcal Paper Mills as director of away from home sales and in their specialty papers national account business. Jim started his career selling towel and tissue products with Scott Paper in the Philadelphia and Baltimore marketplace.

Jim is a graduate of the University of Scranton and has a passion for watching his children play lacrosse, riding his motorcycle as far as he can, and spending time at the beach with his family. He and his wife Elizabeth reside in Avondale, PA with their 3 children.

Marie Oliver leads the Global Arcadis Academy for Arcadis, the leading Design & Consultancy firm for natural and built assets which is renowned for its work on iconic structures. In this role, Marie is responsible for the development of professional competence needed to differentiate Arcadis in the marketplace and achieve our strategic aims. The Arcadis Academy focuses on realizing people’s full potential and delivering the best outcomes for clients.

One of the four global Academies at Arcadis is the Client Focus Academy, in which Marie partners directly with the Global Key Accounts Lead. Additionally, she leads the Global Learning & Development and Talent community within Arcadis.

Marie has 18 years of experience in human resources management both in consulting and in-house HRM roles and specializes in talent management and learning & development on a global level.

Russ is first a dad, husband, son, brother and friend. If he can be nothing more, he would remain eternally happy.

Russ has been a transformational leader of sales, marketing and related operations and enablement functions within the B2B financial services industry for over twenty years. He has a track record of delivering growth through initiatives that develop people, refine go-to-market strategies, improve operational effectiveness and deliver business intelligence.

He is passionate about building and motivating high performance teams and maintains there is nothing more rewarding than recognizing talent, putting them in the right roles and helping them succeed.

Russ is currently the Head of Sales Strategy and Effectiveness at Dun & Bradstreet. Most recently he served as Global Head of Sales Operations and Marketing at Coleman Research. Prior to that he held the position of Global Head of Market Data Advisory as at Bank of America and Head of Business Operations for Thomson Reuters. He is also a former member of the management team at the start-up Multex.com, as well as a ten-year veteran of ADP's Financial Information Services Group where he held sales and service management roles. He holds a BA from The College of New Jersey and a Masters from Indiana University.

Russ is also an artist, musician, and published children’s book author. He resides in NJ with his wife and two daughters.

As a former training and repair strategy lead at Apple, Adrian’s work led to the successful expansion of Apple’s internal and external client training programs in New York City. He helped develop several training methods that leveraged the existing workforce, greatly expanding client access to learning. These techniques would ultimately go nationwide and become standard operating procedure for the company. In 2015, he left Apple to further his study of Organizational Development at Columbia University. Currently, he is researching the impact of artificial intelligence on the future of learning and employee development in the workplace. He is also a research assistant at Sloan International Inc.

Don brings extensive experience helping field sales and account management teams accelerate transformation from product/technology/services focus to customer value focus in order to grow revenues and operating margins. He has a strong emphasis on helping organizations bridge the gap between corporate strategy and sales execution through effective business assessment, engagement model definition and critical skill development for customer-facing teams. Don has focused on the following areas in helping clients improve their business outcomes: Strategic Account Management, Executive Engagement and Demand Creation, Opportunity Planning and Deal Strategy, Challenger Selling and Value-based Selling, Coaching to Improve Sales Performance. Don worked with Aptean, a $300 million portfolio company of Vista Equity Group, to design and deploy an account management program to support their new corporate strategy. This program substantially increased revenues the first year it was deployed. Don worked extensively with a major global software provider to design, develop and deliver a value-based selling curriculum that was integral to their new customer engagement model. This new model allowed them to increase revenues and average deal size while decreasing cost of sales. He also worked with another large multinational corporation to roll out strategic account management, value-based selling and opportunity management. The strategic account management program stabilized a $50M annual revenue stream and reduced the number of potentially defecting strategic customers by 90% and the opportunity management program resulted in a 10% increase in revenues for two years running. Don, along with two SOAR colleagues, led the deployment of Challenger Selling at SAP North America. He personally conducted over 40 Challenger Selling workshops at SAP and has delivered Challenger Selling in numerous other organizations. Other significant projects include company-wide deployments of consultative selling skills and sales coaching programs for sales and professional services teams. Don held various sales and sales management positions including ten years at SAP and six years at Management Science America / Dunn and Bradstreet Software before launching a career in sales consulting and training. At SAP he led a team in the deployment of a new customer engagement model in the Americas and spearheaded the value-based launch of CRM and SCM solutions. Don lives in Atlanta, Georgia, graduated from the University of Florida with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and has a Masters of Business Information Systems from Georgia State University.

Michael Rabinowitz has been working for MSD, an innovative, global healthcare leader that is committed to improving health and well-being around the world, for over twenty years. His current role within the global health organization is to manage all enterprise efforts with one of Merck's top non-governmental global customers, as part of an executive management initiative to transform the company from product and geographic focus into a leading customer centric organization. In previous roles, Michael has led a global franchise of brands, headed Investor Relations, and represented Marketing in global acquisitions and business development. Michael graduated summa cum laude in Economics and Applied Math from Northwestern University, obtained his MBA in Finance and Strategic Management from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, and participated in executive education at the Harvard Business School of Harvard University and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He achieved his SAMA certification in 2015.

Born February 19th 1962 in Germany, Dr. Hajo Rapp completed his University degree in business sciences followed by his doctorate in social- and business sciences.

1994 he started his career as Management Consultant for Management Partner in Stuttgart. From there he moved to Siemens Nixdorf as sales representative for IT Services and joined Account Management in 1997. In 1999 he took over his first leading role in an Account team responsible for Europe. From 2002 to 2007 he was responsible worldwide for one of the largest customers of Siemens covering the total Siemens portfolio.

In June 2007 he moved to Siemens Headquarters as Head of Account Management & Market Development within the Corporate Development Department in Munich. There he leads a team of specialists which harmonizes the global approaches in Account Management - like structures and processes - within Siemens.

Dr. Rapp is married and has two children. 

Elizabeth Rayer, Ph.D. is a Partner at Vantage Partners and heads the Enterprise Learning practice. She brings expertise in negotiation, influence, change management, organizational development and instructional design. Liz’s work has been heavily concentrated on enabling organizations across various industries to have a sustainable, positive impact on their bottom line by more strategically and effectively working with, and managing relationships with, internal and external stakeholders. Liz’s work has ranged from designing and implementing organizational wide change initiatives, to designing large-scale learning and skill development programs. Recent clients include Anglo American, GE Energy, IBM, Merck, Microsoft, Novartis, Procter & Gamble, Southern California Edison, and USAA. Prior to joining Vantage Partners, Liz was the CEO of BPYI, Inc., a health and wellness company, where she led the company to increased, sustainable growth by developing profitable partnerships both domestically and internationally. Before that, as Managing Principal of Elevation Strategies, she consulted to organizations on relationship management, leadership, and operational effectiveness issues. In this role, one of her major engagements was designing and implementing a negotiation strategy for the sales force of Pepsi USA. Additional positions Liz has held include Chief Knowledge Officer for Thinking Sun, Inc., a consultant with DBM, and Adjunct Professor of Psychology at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. Liz earned her Ph.D. in Psychoeducational Processes from Temple University. Her focus and dissertation were in the field of organizational development and adult learning.

Peter Redfern has been in sales and sales leadership for over twenty years in the financial, heating ventilation and air conditioning and fire & security industries. He has been with Tyco International (now Johnson Controls) for the past sixteen years in local, Regional, national and now global sales leadership roles. He recently transitioned from leading the Canadian integrated fire & security sales organization into his current role which is Director of global enterprise accounts with Johnson Controls. In this role he is responsible for the team who manages Johnson controls’ largest and most strategic global clients with centralized decision making. Peter is originally from Canada and is now a US Citizen residing in Tampa, FL.

Rick Reynolds is a co-founding partner and CEO of AskForensics, which helps Fortune-ranked companies win more deals and strengthen multi-million dollar accounts. Reynolds is an expert in sales and account forensics, having led thousands of investigations for over 25 years to help clients identify sales growth and account retention opportunities. Reynolds has been featured by the Harvard Business Review, Inc.com, Selling Power, and Sales & Marketing Management. AskForensics’ clients have access to a knowledgebase of account retention data of billions of dollars worth of contracts and proposals. For more information, visit www.AskForensics.com.

Brian Riddick manages the Global Key Clients Program for Arcadis, the leading Design & Consultancy firm for natural and built assets which is renowned for its work on iconic structures. In this role, Brian is responsible for the development and performance of Arcadis’ portfolio of top international clients which are engaged via seven well-defined market sectors designed to deliver promised value to clients, including Automotive, Oil & Gas, and Financial Institutions.

As a core part of the role, Brian has developed and leads Arcadis’ Client Focus Academy together with the Arcadis Academy Director, supporting Global Account and Sector Leaders with deeper client relationships based on insights and advice, as well as getting the basics right around good communication and interpersonal skills.

Brian is a Member of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, specialises in go-to-market strategy and organisation design, post-merger integration, and also is active in client service around client’s most challenging needs on large construction programs in the UK. He has led a number of successful key accounts in federal and regulated markets, previously serving in divisional leadership roles.

Tim Riesterer has dedicated his career to improving the conversations salespeople have with prospects and customers. He is the co-author of three books on the subject and has consulted and trained the top companies in the world. As chief strategy and marketing officer for Corporate Visions, he sets the direction and develops products for this leading marketing and sales messaging, tools and training company.

James brings over 20 years of international and cross-industry experience in consumer products, advertising, manufacturing, and packaging industries.

He leads The Summit Group’s business relationship with covenant clients including 3M, Cisco Systems, Cooper Industries, General Mills, Hilton Hotels, Medtronic, Novozymes, Procter & Gamble, Textron, and U.S. Postal Service.

James joined The Summit Group as Vice President Business Development from Tetra Pak, where he held general management as well as senior sales and marketing roles in Southern Africa, India, Europe and the USA. James championed the companies’ approach towards the customer by leading the implementation of Tetra Pak’s enterprise-wide strategic customer management and customer loyalty programs. He also led global customer teams, re-designed customer-facing business processes, and implemented enterprise and CRM technology solutions.

Ronald Schnur is Vice President, Procurement & Contract Manufacturing for WhiteWave Foods. In this position he is responsible for providing strategic, financial and operational leadership for all company purchased spend and partnerships with 3rd Party Contract Manufacturers. In his previous role with Whitewave Foods, Ron was responsible for Dairy Supply Chain and Operations.

Prior to joining Whitewave, Ron was the Vice President, Procurement and Supplier Management for Sears Holdings Management Corporation. In this position, he was responsible for procurement and supplier management activities for $8.0 billion of non-merchandise goods and services spending. He was also responsible for corporate aviation, e-sourcing and supplier diversity.

Prior to joining Sears Holdings, Ron was Vice President, Strategic Sourcing for Coors Brewing Company in Golden, Colorado. In this position, he held responsibility for all procurement and supplier management activities encompassing raw materials, packaging, corporate services and supplier diversity. Ron has also held procurement and supply leadership positions at Eaton Corporation and Chrysler Corporation.

Ron received his bachelor’s degree from Indiana University — Bloomington and his MBA degree from Penn State University. He currently serves on the Institute of Supply Management (ISM) Services Board of Directors; and also on the UC - Denver Center for Commodities Advisory Council. Ron is a Certified Professional in Supply Management (CPSM) awarded by the Institute of Supply Management.

Ron has served as a board member of the Institute of Supply Management (ISM), and the National Minority Supplier Development Council. In addition, he has served on the Conference Board Procurement Council, Purchasing Roundtable and the Denver Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors. Ron is the 2006 recipient of the Robert Pashek award from Penn State for contributions made to enhancing the logistics and supply chain management profession.

A frequent speaker on topics related to pricing, selling and value management, Brian brings over 20 years of experience in business management, marketing, and commercial development. As Global VP of Commercial Management at Sealed Air Corporation, Brian is helping to lead a transformation of the pricing and value management capability across this diverse $8.5B corporation. Previously, Brian spent four years in consulting and built a successful boutique Pricing & Value Management practice within Kalypso, a global management consulting firm. He led multiple large scale price and value management strategy and transformation engagements at leading companies such as Bayer, eHarmony, Trane, and Samsung. Prior to consulting, Brian held a variety of global and regional sales and marketing leadership roles in the US, Europe, Latin America and Asia with Lord Corporation, BP and Castrol Lubricants. He received a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.

For the past 4 years, Julie has developed a background in hospitality related strategic account management in support of Hilton Worldwide. Previous to January 2011, Julie was a Strategic Account Director for AT&T and worked in the telecom industry for 19 years.

In her current role as a Global Account Director on the Strategic Account Management Team, Julie is responsible for managing executive/strategic relationships between Hilton Worldwide and several key strategic accounts.

A member of Hilton Worldwide’s Circle of Excellence designation for 2011, 2012, and 2013, Julie is honored to also be a part of the Hilton Worldwide SAM Team who were the 2013 winners of the Strategic Account Management Association (SAMA) Program of the Year Award.

Julie has lived in Texas since 2000. She resides with Steve, her husband of 20 years, and their two daughters, Jesse (17) and Molly (16). Prior to living in Texas she also spent time living in Indiana and New Jersey. Julie was born and raised in Michigan and lived there until her high school graduation when she headed out East to attend Princeton University to play basketball and earn an Ivy League education.

Special interests include competing in triathlons, watching her girls play basketball, and spending time with friends and family.

As Co-President of IMPAX Corporation, Mark Shonka unites powerful thought leadership and decades of high-level selling experience to launch the world’s leading sales organizations to the next level of selling success. Intensely results- and action-oriented, Mark does far more than merely spout ideas about how to improve sales; he details precisely what sales teams need to do to within their unique corporate structures and business cultures to achieve stellar sales success. His expertise is valued by organizations such as Microsoft, IBM, DHL, US Bank, DuPont and GE Healthcare. Mark is highly sought-after speaker globally, has authored numerous articles by top selling publications and co-authored with Dan Kosch, Beyond Selling Value, a business bestseller that was named one of the top 40 books of the year by Business Book Review.

Mark’s sales acumen stays razor sharp because he practices what he preaches every day – expertly selling to the complete business-to-business spectrum and leading a team of top sales professionals who do the same. Mark’s knowledge is founded in more than 25 years of experience in direct sales, sales management, and sales consulting and training. He is an authority on a range of sales topics including selling value, strategic account selling, strategic account management, account planning and sales leadership.

Mark has been associated with IMPAX Corporation since 1988 and has been a Co-President since 1991. Prior to joining IMPAX, he had a successful sales career in the information systems industry working for IBM and Memorex-Telex. He has bachelor’s degree in Marketing/Management from the College of St. Thomas and a Master’s of Business Administration from the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management. Mark is actively involved in the community, providing leadership in academic foundations, sports associations and his faith community.

A leading authority on the cognitive aspect of strategic thinking, Julia is widely recognized for her pioneering work on the application of complex cognitive theory to everyday global strategy practice. She is the author of the definitive book, Learning to Think Strategically (1st ed., Elsevier, 2nd ed., Routledge, 3rd ed. forthcoming, 2016), which was awarded Best Business Book of the Year by the Financial Times (2007). She is a contributing author to Democratic Practices as Learning Opportunities, 2008, and Women as Global Leaders, 2013 and a forthcoming book on strategic thinking in 2016. Additionally, Julia has authored 22 privately commissioned articles and contributed 34 unpublished papers to think tanks and corporations.

Serving as a lecturer on strategic thinking at the Brookings Institute, Julia has also been named as part of the Distinguished Lecturer Series at the Mohammad bin Rashid School of Government (Dubai). She teaches strategic thinking at Columbia University and Beijing University and holds a faculty appointment at the Central University of Finance and Economics (Beijing). She has guest lectured at MIT and Harvard University (US), Keio University (Japan), King Saud University (Saudi Arabia), Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, and the India Institute of Management (India).

Julia’s research interests include strategic thinking in relation to learning theory and socio-cultural theory. Her scholarship is focused on strategic thinking for leadership development, characterized by an innovative, interdisciplinary approach drawn from cognitive theory and leadership principles within a post-modern global environment. As a result of her research on strategic thinking, Julia was twice invited to speak on behalf of the late Nobel Prize economist, Milton Friedman.

Drawing on more than two decades of her own corporate expatriate experience, Julia regularly travels abroad to work on-site with business executives and public policy leaders. Her work aims to expand their focus beyond a strategic planning model to include a more expansive and complex notion of strategy that includes innovation and perpetual change.

In addition to working with corporations, Julia also consults for the United Nations Secretariat and UN Peacekeeping Operations in more than 30 field missions, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. She served as an advisor to the Afghan women delegates in the first Constitutional Convention in 2003, and has been instrumental in supporting the efforts of rising business leaders in war-torn countries of Sudan, Iraq and Kosovo.

A frequent presenter on the topic of strategic thinking at innovation, business and policy conferences in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and North America, Julia has addressed organizations including: Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), Southeast Asian Investment Forum, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Japan Export and Trade Organization (JETRO), Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST), Fulbright Scholars, the Economic Summit in Mongolia and the Economic Development Summit in the UAE.

Julia is principal of Sloan International Inc., a New York-based executive development firm specializing in strategic thinking for organizations operating in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and North America. In addition to seven of the top-10 most innovative companies, her client base consists of major corporations representing finance, technology, manufacturing, consumer products, petroleum, the United Nations and international agencies. She sits on the advisory board for the Arab-American Policy Consortium and the Silicone Valley start-up, RoboTerra. Julia’s educational background includes a doctorate from Columbia University, master’s study from Yale University and University of Alaska, and undergraduate study from Kent State University.

Gene Slowinski is the Director of Strategic Alliance Research at the Graduate School of Management, Rutgers University and Managing Partner of the Alliance Management Group. Prior to forming the Alliance Management Group, he held management positions at AT&T Bell Laboratories, and Novartis Corporation. In addition to a Ph.D. in Management, Gene holds an MBA, and a Masters Degree in the sciences.

For the last 20 years Dr. Slowinski has consulted and conducted research on the formation and management of strategic alliances, joint ventures, mergers, and acquisitions. His clients include GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Lucent Technologies, Motorola, Johnson & Johnson, Ethicon, ExxonMobil, AT&T, Becton Dickinson, Procter & Gamble, Battelle, and many other Fortune 500 firms. An author and lecturer, Gene has presented his work to The Conference Board, The Licensing Executives Society, The Industrial Research Institute, and The American Electronics Association. His articles on managing strategic alliances can be found in Business Horizons, Research and Technology Management, Mergers and Acquisitions, Economic Development Quarterly, Les Nouvelles, Cooperative Strategies in International Business, The Journal of Advanced Management, and Managing the High Technology Firm. With Matt Sagal, he co-authored the of book The Strongest Link.

Gene is active in the technology management community. He is a member of the Academy of Management, The Conference Board's International Council on the Management of Technology and Innovation, the Industrial Research Institute's Research-on-Research Committee, and the Technology Management Research Center at Rutgers University. In addition, he is on the Board of Directors of Advanced Adjuvants LLC.

Anthony Stanich III is responsible for the Global Corporate account team for the Food and Beverage Water business within Nalco. His current focus is in creating a CAM organizational structure, working with counter parts throughout Ecolab in helping to develop and sustain a CAM curriculum, working with my marketing and finance partners to develop more robust, quantified value propositions, and expanding the program globally.

Prior to his current role, Tony led the global marketing team for the same business. He worked side by side with the prior VP of Corporate Accounts in developing the value proposition, offering, pricing strategies, and deal constructs for all of Nalco’s corporate accounts. This segment of the business grew by double digits the last 5 years increasing market share from the mid 20's to the mid 40's.

Jennifer Stanley is an Expert Partner in McKinsey’s B2B Marketing and Sales practice. Her guidance, based on customer-centered research, has enabled countless sales executives to make winning strategic decisions. Jennifer specializes in go-to-market transformation, sales force and channel management issues and serves a range of companies, focusing in basic materials (e.g. chemicals, pulp and paper), OEMs and multi-tier distribution environments. Jennifer has deep expertise in go-to-market (GTM) strategy, design and channel architecture, distribution management and key account management. She also helps clients implement professional development programs as part of transformational initiatives. Prior to McKinsey, Jennifer held various sales and marketing roles with a subsidiary of Trans World Airlines while completing her higher education. She also taught sales management at the university level. Jennifer was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, holds a MSc. in international political economy from the London School of Economics and has her BA from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville..

Michael Stevens has more than three decades of Fortune 100 high-technology sales, marketing, senior business management, international and P&L experience, having spent a total of 35 years with 3M, 27 of which were in the globally competitive data storage industry with management positions in the US and Japan.

From 1996-1999 he was with a 3M spin-off company, Imation Corp., where he was General Manager for Optical Storage, and then for Enterprise Storage. He rejoined 3M in 1999, where he spent eight years in the electronics industry. In this capacity, he held executive management, business development and global strategic account management positions, dealing primarily with strategy development and sales execution of leading technologies in the electronic components area.

Michael also developed a new go-to-market (customer-focused) strategy for the company, which was acknowledged within 3M and outside the company as a “best practice” for launching a Global Strategic Account Management (SAM) program.

Recognizing his passion, experience and willingness to share and contribute best practice knowledge on strategic account management, Michael was elected to the Board of Directors of SAMA in 2006 and served through 2014. He continues today to work with SAMA to help guide and influence this topical subject of strategic customer focus.

In early 2007, Michael joined Performance Methods, Inc. (PMI) as a Senior Partner, focused primarily on companies needing assistance with designing, developing and deploying a Strategic Account Management program.

Michael is the CEO of a new best-practice consultancy, The Simplexity Group (TSG), based in Leesburg, VA. TSG is focused on Strategic Customer Engagement business initiatives through four foundational elements: Transformation, Enablement, Globalization, and Sustainability. The TSG business model is built on simple and practical client-customized methodologies, concepts, applications and field-ready tools.

Kaj Storbacka is Professor, Markets and Strategy at the University of Auckland Business School's Graduate School of Management. He has previously been Professor of Sales and Account Management at the Nyenrode Business Universiteit in the Netherlands and Professor of Marketing Strategy at Hanken School of Economics in Finland. His main research focuses on market and business model innovation, market shaping strategies and solution business transformation.

Dr Storbacka has made a career out of working on the borderline between academic and applied research within marketing and strategic management. He has over 30 years of background as a strategy consultant to European and global companies – in finance, media, travel, retail, utility, manufacturing and telecommunications. Out of this time, he spent 18 years leading Vectia Ltd, a consultancy operating in Finland, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands that he founded in 1994.

Kaj has a long background in executive education, running MBA and executive MBA courses in New Zealand, Finland, Singapore and Shanghai. He is a frequent speaker at internal seminars for major global corporations, and at leading management development institutions in Europe, Asia and the US.

Kaj has published 12 books, some of which have been translated into several languages, and over 30 academic articles. His work has been cited over 6000 times, according to Google Scholar.

Successful sales and marketing Director/Manager with over 22 years experience at Abbott in the in vitro diagnostics market place. Job responsibilities have included global sales and marketing efforts of all product offerings within the diagnostics division with sales in excess of $3.5 Billion USD. Led a team of over 40 employees (directors, managers, and product managers) in order to profitably grow diagnostics revenues globally.

Also, more than 10 years of successful experiences in launching numerous new products into the global in vitros diagnostics market place with an addiitonal 8 years of diagnostics sales experience at Abbott as a key account representative and product specialist in the mid west United States.

Currently responsible for sales of one of the largest global strategic accounts in the division. Previous duties have included the training and support of marketing organizations in over 130 countries worldwide. Also have worked with and led new product development teams in R & D and technical product development to successfully develop and launch new in vitro diagnostics products.

Specialties: New product development and launch. Strategic marketing and sales tactics.

As CEO of The Summit Group, Phil is a recognized thought leader on business value transformation as part of the go-to-market strategies of some of the world's premier organizations, both in the public and private sectors. In addition to his keynote presentations and engaging programs, Phil serves as a coach, mentor, consultant, and advisor to top leaders across a range of industries and has delivered sessions in over 40 countries. Phil has served on the Board of Directors for SAMA (Strategic Account Management Association) and also leads the CEO Forum as part of the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C.

Phil has written for, or been cited in, articles in leading publications that include: The Wall Street Journal, The National Account Management Journal, The Los Angeles Times, Inc., Fast Company, as well as in several best-selling books including Adversity Quotient and The Power of Purpose. In 2014, the book Relevance: Matter More was released; co-written by Phil.

His career includes key leadership positions with US West and ADC Telecommunications. Phil also teaches in various University and Executive Education programs, and has Masters Degrees in Business Administration and Telecommunications Science. He currently is engaged in a Doctorate Program at Middlesex University in London.

Scott Sumner has worked for Emerson in various leadership roles since January 2003. His current role of Global Strategic Account Leader emphasizes customer problem solving at all organizational levels leveraging industrial automation and reliability solutions that reduce customer operations and maintenance (O&M) costs and increase availability & throughput in a safe and environmentally compliant manner. Past professional experiences include enterprise software sales with JD Edwards Company and various industrial automation sales positions with Foxboro (now part of Schneider Electric), Fischer & Porter (now part of ABB) and Micro Motion. Scott began his professional career working in the field of hazardous waste management. Scott is a graduate of Missouri University of Science and Technology, (formerly, University of Missouri Rolla) where he obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Geological Engineering and completed the Executive MBA Program at Kennesaw State University (KSU). Additionally, he is a Certified Managerial Coach (CMC). Scott is happily married, has one child and lives in the Atlanta, GA metropolitan area.

As UCB's Chief Marketing Officer, Bharat heads the Global Marketing and Market Access Practice and is a member of the Executive Committee of UCB. Mr. Tewarie joined UCB in 2015 with more than 25 years of experience in the pharma and biotech industry. He has acquired impressive world-wide expertise while leading global business franchises to great success. His past experience in domains such as immunology and neurology are a great match to UCB's core focus areas. His knowledge of markets around the world is also key to helping UCB prepare for future product launches.

Charlie Thackston has a passion for helping companies grow. This passion led to the founding of SOAR Performance Group, a consulting and training company, where he serves as president. SOAR Performance Group has a constant focus on helping clients drive changes in go-to-market strategy, sales approach and account management skills to achieve new levels of performance. His prior experience includes sales and marketing leadership roles for early stage venture capital backed technology companies. In these roles, he was responsible for building sales teams, sales channels and product positioning strategies to support successful initial public stock offerings. He holds Master’s and Bachelor’s Degrees in Business Administration from the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia.

Charlie is also the author of “Change Velocity”: The Secret to Leading a Successful Sales Transformation.

John Thackston is the Vice President of Client Engagements and Co-Founder of SOAR Performance Group. John is responsible for ensuring the success of our clients through effective client relationship development and project management. Additionally, John supports the overall strategic direction and operational management of the company. During his tenure with the company, John has supported the growth of our Sales Capital Management℠ practice by providing exceptional service to our industry leading clients. John leverages his expertise in designing, developing, and deploying Sales Capital Management℠ projects to help our clients effectively drive new go-to-market approaches and improve bottom line results. Additionally, John has been asked to share his perspective on business to business sales as a guest speaker and panelist for the Sales Management Association.

John is a Cum Laude graduate of Washington and Lee University where he was a 4 year member of the football team. Additionally, in John’s prior experience he supported areas of sales, customer relationship management, and finance at both Cousins Properties and Metropolitan Real Estate Equity Management.

Michael brings experience from a career of more than 25 years in solutions-selling, consulting and professional services management roles, serving account bases that include some of the largest companies in the world. With direct experience selling complex portfolios of products and services, and acting as a mentor and coach for executing sales strategies around the world, Michael has a background of demonstrated successes at the strategic level. He provides effective leadership to account teams, segment managers and executive sales leadership across a wide span of verticals and markets.

As the principal and founder of Magnetic, Michael helps lead diverse teams towards transforming their sales and customer management practices. Starting in 2011, Magnetic has engaged with customers in over 15 countries across the globe, bringing innovative sales strategies and delivery experience to multiple industries and channels. In the past 5 years, Magnetic has directly impacted over $1.6B USD in revenue and sales for their customers.

Before founding Magnetic, Michael worked at Microsoft for 15 years within their enterprise accounts group and consulting organizations. Additionally, he served key transition roles in their Silicon Valley area as part of major cloud-based acquisitions. His responsibilities included readying customer accounts and businesses for introduction into the multibillion-dollar enterprise sales organization, as well as managing the ongoing P&L of those customer business teams during the transitions.

Prior to Microsoft, Michael held positions with several boutique consulting and custom software development firms in the Great Lakes, United States region, leading and managing both revenue lines and services teams.

Michael is a frequent speaker and presenter for private and public functions. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from The University of Ohio State in Columbus, Ohio. Michael currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee.

Dominic leads a team of North American professionals responsible for mentoring and coaching Strategic Account Managers to differentiate ADP, create value, increase revenue, drive profitability and create better relationships with Strategic Accounts. Dominic collaborates with all levels of management to identify and execute on key strategic and productivity initiatives.

Dominic began his career with Royal Bank of Canada in 1991 but moved to ADP through acquisition in 1997. Since then, he has never left. Dominic has held a variety of service, sales and training roles which include strategic account management positions for some of ADP’s largest global customers. He is a four time President’s Club award winner with ADP.

Dominic holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from York University, a Bachelor of Education degree from Brock University and a Masters in Theology from the University of Toronto. He is married to the love of his life, Loton and together they are steering their 16 year old son Matthew through the jungles of being a teenager. He currently resides in the suburbs of Toronto, Canada.

Turvey joined Grease Consulting in 2011 as a partner after more than 20 years in management consulting where he focused on providing high quality strategy and marketing assistance to younger or smaller firms (< $100 million in sales) primarily in manufacturing, distribution, and software. Harry continues his long-standing interest in finding pragmatic methods for delivering high-performance strategies within the multiple constraints of smaller clients and in solving the change leadership issues that always arise. Harry’s earlier work experience included positions in chemical manufacturing, paper marketing, and medical office computer marketing, as well as two tours in software startups. His corporate governance experience includes serving on the Board of OrePac Building Materials and on the advisory board of Elastochem, Inc. Turvey holds BA and Master’s degrees in chemical engineering from Rice University as well as an MBA from Stanford University.

Tim Underhill started his career in measuring value as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Texas A&M University, then worked for Red Man Pipe & Supply (now MRC Global) helping them sell strategic alliances based on total cost savings, and is now the president of Strategic Business Solutions. He has authored two books: Strategic Alliances: Managing the Supply Chain and Team Up! Profit Up!, and developed two software programs for capturing and reporting value added savings: SalesStrat and SourcingStrat.

Tim has worked for a wide range of sales organization around Value Added, including: ABB, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Ferguson/Wolseley, Graybar Electric, MRC Global, Parker Hannifin, SKF, Schneider Electric, and Swagelok. He can be reached at tim.underhill@sbs4me.com.

Jennifer Vessels, CEO of Next Step and a Certified Management Consultant (CMC)*, brings over 25 years successful experience in global sales, marketing and management experience to her organization, clients and workshop attendees. After building and managing sales, marketing and channel operations teams for numerous entrepreneurial software companies, Jennifer spent 8 years in the late 80’s to mid 90’s with Tandem subsidiary, Ungermann-Bass – leading Product Marketing, Corporate Education and Sales Operations.

From 1992 to 1997, Jennifer lived and worked in Europe, initially as European Markets Director forUngermann-Bass then European General Manager for Promptus Communications and International Sales Director for Tandberg Telecom, in Oslo Norway. In 1997, Jennifer and her team were instrumental in the establishment of Tandberg USA. At that time she returned to the US and founded Next Step.

As Next Step’s CEO, Jennifer ensures her organization provides the resources and skills to be the go-to consulting partner for high and low tech companies in all stages of growth. Working closely with the company’s clients, she assigns the right ‘Engagement Team’ for each project and ensures the team is accountable for real bottom line results.

Having attained her MBA from San Jose State University in 1988, Jennifer completed her Masters in Occupational Psychology at the University of London in 1996.

Steffen has collected almost 20 years of sales experience in various positions and technology sectors. Starting his career as Key Account Manager UPM Kymmene one of the leading paper companies serving the biggest German publisher he developed a clear focus for customer value co-creation which lead him to a number of roles as Sales Director such as search engines and machine building.

Today he leads the EMEA sales organization and has set up the Global Account Management Team at Fette Compacting together with Martin Davies. Fette Compacting is a medium-sized, family owned German specialist and market leader in tablet presses for the Pharmaceutical Industry.

Key elements of his work are the creation of the GAM methodology, developing the necessary tools and tailoring new products and concepts aiming to start a new paradigm in customer partnership for Fette Compacting. Today, the GAM team takes responsibility for cooperative growth of the business and takes the lead in defining new ways of working, standardization initiatives and launches fleet management programs.

Carrie has been a Partner at Think! Inc. & 5600 blue since 2001. Her role includes consulting clients on implementing value creation and value capture ecosystems, business development, developing sales strategy, and onboarding new consultants.

Prior, Carrie held a 16-year career at Marriott focused on sales & strategic account management. She contributed to the creation and implementation of Marriott’s first Strategic Account Management model and strategy.

She is a practitioner first, consultant second, meaning that everything she’ll talk about today she also has implemented.

Carrie is been a member of Strategic Account Management Association (SAMA) and held a 10 year position on SAMA’s Board of Directors. Think! Inc is one of 7 partners that contribute content to SAMA’s certification program; they are the only negotiation content provider.

She is a graduate of the Executive Development Program at the Aspen Institute/University of Maryland and holds a B.A. from the University of Colorado. Carrie resides in Lake Bluff, IL with her husband, John, and four children.

Formerly VP Global Enterprise Customers | Schneider Electric-SGBD currently Vice President Global Accounts, Danfoss

In April, 2014, Geoff became Vice President, Global Accounts at Danfoss, where he is responsible for the Global Accounts strategy, startup, development and management for Danfoss Climate & Energy.

Geoff Williams worked for SGBD - Schneider Electric for almost 9 years and, most recently, as Director of Global Strategic Accounts for Microelectronics Customers.

Prior to this assignment, Geoff was a project leader based in Paris working on Schneider’s Change Management effort to move from a product-based company to a customer-oriented approach. Geoff has also participated for the last 2 years in the Columbia University Business School Global Account Initiative to identify and develop industry best practices for various Global account Management functions. Prior to working for Schneider Electric, Geoff co-founded Integrated Dynamics Engineering, Inc. in the Boston area to develop advanced control systems for the semiconductor industry. Geoff spent 7 years at Analogic Corporation as International Sales Manager developing business and setting up operations and distribution in over 40 countries. A recent Velocity™ article titled the “Global Business Citizen” sums up his feelings about global business.

Geoff lives in Raleigh N.C. with his wife, 2 children, spending spare time cooking, Cub Scouts, soccer, basketball, daughter’s violin and other family activities.

Past SAMA Treasurer of the Board 2006 – 2007

Current SAMA Chairperson of the Board