Wes Bean is currently vice president of own brands strategy and innovation for Winn-Dixie Stores where he is responsible for a $1 billion P&L for the company's private label business. Previously at Winn-Dixie, Wes has served as senior director of strategic sourcing with responsibility for supporting the sourcing needs of store operations, Corporate Services (IT, Mkt., HR), Pharmacy and Logistic business units and has led the development of a matrixed structure with the Center Store Organization to support key merchandising initiatives with sourcing activities and build the foundational process for category reviews. He has also served as the director for retail development. Prior to joining Winn-Dixie, Wes served in numerous positions at Walmart including director of strategic sourcing for Walmart global procurement, director for business development, and deputy director of International Trade Development. Wes helped design global procurement strategies and new market opportunity assessments across the global supply base, while supporting in negotiations and lobbying efforts for Free trade agreements that had direct affect of Walmart’s global supply chain. Before moving into the Global Procurement side of the business, Wes served as the manager of global training for Walmart Asia. Before joining Walmart, Wes worked at General Electric, BMW Manufacturing and Michelin USA in a variety of consulting roles related to change management, Six Sigma process improvement, and cross-cultural team effectiveness. Wes has considerable international experience having lived outside the U.S. for over eight years in Turkey, Russia, U.K., Japan, and Italy and has worked in over 30 international markets. Wes has a bachelor's of arts in international studies as well as politics and diplomacy from the University of Richmond and a master's of business affairs in international business from CIMBA University in Italy. Wes completed postgraduate studies in trade, economics and negotiations at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Wes currently serves on the Jacksonville Board of Directors of the Ronald McDonald House Charities, the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce International Committee, and is a member of the Council on World Affairs.

Tom Becker is the director of own brands marketing for Ahold USA whose banners include Stop & Shop, Giant, and Martin's. In his capacity he is responsible for the brand management and marketing of all the Ahold USA owned brands. Prior to joining Ahold USA he was with OfficeMax as director of private brands and served as head of marketing for The Wall Street Journal Online. Previously, he worked in various brand management positions for Heinz, Ocean Spray, and Colgate.

Anne Bedarf joined GreenBlue in September 2007 as a project manager for the Sustainable Packaging Coalition. Anne leads the SPC’s Packaging Recovery Label System project, which will be piloted in 2012. She also manages and teaches the Essentials of Sustainable Packaging curriculum. She was previously the environmental and safety manager for the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority and Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority in Charlottesville, VA, where she led the implementation of an Environmental Management System at a wastewater plant, water treatment plants, and solid waste/recycling facilities. In addition, she managed a landfill bioremediation project to include groundwater and air quality monitoring. Anne has also been a project manager and environmental scientist for the Environmental Company, Inc., as well as a fellow with the Virginia Natural Resources Leadership Institute. She holds a master's of urban and environmental planning from the University of Virginia, with a focus on sustainable food system planning, a master's in environmental science and ecology from the University of Maryland, and a bachelor's in environmental science from the University of Virginia.

As president of global innovation and strategy for SymphonyIRI Group, Thom Blischok leads the development of SymphonyIRI's value proposition for the company's retail and manufacturer clients and delivers relevant and timely thought leadership to global markets in such areas as shopper centricity, new wave collaboration, rewiring marketing and merchandising and increasing competitiveness at retail. With more than 40 years of experience in the retail and consumer packaged goods industries, Blischok leads SymphonyIRI's think tank in innovation. He frequently provides commentary on the CPG industry trends for leading publications, including The Wall Street Journal and Business Week, and speaks at more than 100 conferences per year. Blischok previously served as global chairman of Coopers & Lybrand Retail & Distribution; president of AT&T global consulting; chairman and CEO of MindMeld, Inc., a market-leading shopper intelligence company whose client base has included Walmart, Kmart, Food Lion, Target, CVS, Walgreens, Family Dollar, Dollar General, and 7-eleven, as well as a number of international retailers.

A Northern California native, Nancy Cota began her extensive career with Safeway 35 years ago and currently holds the position of Vice President of Innovation, Consumer Brands. In this role, Nancy recently spearheaded the development and launch of an all-natural product line that would not only meet the needs of Safeway’s customers, but her needs as well; and thus, Open Nature™, the newest addition to Safeway’s exclusive portfolio of health and wellness brands, was born. Aside from leading the Open Nature line, Nancy’s responsibilities include understanding consumer behaviors, identifying and addressing consumer needs, and defining and launching large platforms that span across multiple categories throughout the store for Consumer Brands. As Vice President of Innovation, she works with an extensive team to develop solutions to consumer problems that are implemented across all of Safeway’s nearly 1,700 stores. She is a member of several professional organizations including the Center for Corporate Innovation, the Retail Product Innovation Council and the Network of Executive Women, Northern California Chapter. Nancy is also an active board member for the nonprofit adoption organization, Angels Heaven, which focuses on placing older children that need permanent homes and is an advocate for cancer research recently leading a team of 117 people, who raised more than $45,000, for the “Bra’s for the Cause” 10K walk. Nancy holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration and in Marketing from Cal State University Hayward.

Matt Egol is a partner in Booz & Company's consumer, media, and digital practice, based in the firm's New York City office. Matt has more than 15 years consulting experience, serving clients across the marketing ecosystem, including retailers, marketing services firms, CPG manufacturers, and media companies. As brand marketers and retailers embrace a broader set of opportunities to engage consumers along the full path to purchase, they are building new capabilities to better leverage and integrate content development, applications, and social media into their toolkit. Many of these opportunities require better integration across traditional silos to build new capabilities, from consumer and shopper insights, to advertising and branded entertainment, to promotions and shopper marketing, to digital relationship marketing. Recent client engagements have focused on issues such as helping marketers develop new capabilities to drive sales growth and enhance brand equity, helping retailers better harness investments in digital to build consumer relationships and enhance promotions effectiveness, and helping media companies transform themselves into marketing solutions providers. Matt has led Booz & Company's annual study with the Grocery Manufacturers Association on shopper marketing for each of the past two years. Matt is a frequent speaker on shopper marketing at other industry forums such as the Association of National Advertisers, the In Store Marketing Institute, Google ThinkCPG, and Marketing to Women.

John Failla’s career includes experience as a CPG sales manager, publisher and event producer, including responsibility for launching and managing B2B media brands serving the retailing, CPG, and media markets. Prior to starting Store Brands Decisions in 2009, John spent six years as group president at Nielsen Business Media where he was responsible for publications, trade shows, and online services. During his tenure at Nielsen, John was recognized for his entrepreneurial leadership. Before entering the trade show business, John was President of the Retail Group of VNU Business Media and spent 15 years at Lebhar Friedman. In those roles, John was responsible for managing media brands such as Progressive Grocer, Convenience Store News and Discount Store News. John began his career in Procter & Gamble's sales management program where he learned the fundamentals of consumer products marketing. An authority on retailing and business media brand development, Failla has been a featured speaker at domestic and international conferences on retailing, eRetailing and media brand development.

Dan Hill is a recognized authority on the role of emotions in consumer and employee behavior with over a decade of experience operating his scientific, emotional insights consultancy: Sensory Logic, Inc. One of the company’s unique research tools is facial coding, highlighted in Malcolm Gladwell’s best-seller "Blink" and serves as the basis for the Fox network’s prime-time hit “Lie to Me." A frequent speaker at business conferences, Dan’s clients have included Target, Toyota, Reebok, Whirlpool, American Express, Capital One, Hershey, Lego, Nokia, and GlaxoSmithKline. Dan appeared on “The Today Show,” FOX, CNN, and MSNBC regarding his facial coding analysis of the 2008 presidential election. Press coverage of Dan and his company include The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Advertising Age, and Time.com. Dan’s books include "Body of Truth: Leveraging What Consumers Can’t or Won’t Say" (Beaver’s Pond Press, 2007) and "Emotionomics: Leveraging Emotions for Business Success" (Kogan Page Publishing, 2009). Dan’s latest book, "About Face: Ten Secrets to Emotionally Effective Advertising," was released in October 2010 (Kogan Page Publishing). Dan received his doctorate from Rutgers University following studies at Brown University, Oxford University, and St. Olaf College.

Robert E. Hogan is director of global marketing for Zip-Pak. The firm is a division of Illinois Tool Works, a $16.1 billion company encompassing businesses worldwide that produce materials for the food and beverage, automotive, construction, and manufacturing industries, among others. Zip-Pak is the global leader in developing new resealable packaging technologies. Zip-Pak’s packaging can be found in nearly every aisle of the supermarket and convenience stores, as well as in a host of foodservice, medical and industrial applications. Since joining the division in 1994, Mr. Hogan has led the sales, marketing and strategic alliance efforts for the company. Under his leadership, the company has advanced the science of resealable packaging through extensive engineering and developing close relationships with leading packaging machinery manufacturers and converters around the world. During this time, Zip-Pak has grown from a North American focused company to a global supplier, supporting customers in 52 countries worldwide. Mr. Hogan holds a bachelor’s in marketing from The Whittemore School of Business and Economics at the University of New Hampshire. He is a member of the ITW Patent Society and holds several patents in resealable packaging technology.

During his career he has helped lead a steady stream of award-winning and business-building product innovations to build brands at some of the world’s leading companies, including OfficeMax, Goodyear, Motorola, Honeywell and Procter & Gamble. Mike has been a champion of driving innovation by integrating deep consumer insights, new technology and new business models, overlaid with great design. Mike led OfficeMax into premium private label through the creation of the award-winning TUL writing instruments line, along with InPlace, DiVOGA and many other new brand launches. At Goodyear, Mike helped shape the Goodyear Assurance line of tires, the most successful new product introduction in Goodyear’s history. Additionally, he managed 22 private brands at Goodyear. Mike has also had key marketing leadership roles at Motorola, Honeywell, and Procter & Gamble.

Julie Krueger is Industry Director of Retail at Google, leading the team that manages partnerships with the largest retailers across the country. In her role, Julie is responsible for the primary relationship with retailers to help them grow their business by better understanding consumer behavior, industry and competitive trends and emerging opportunities in the digital space and how to best leverage Google products and services to capitalize on this understanding. Julie brings 15 years of retail experience to Google from some of the largest retailers in the country. Prior to joining Google, Julie was with OfficeMax where she was Senior Vice President of eCommerce & Direct, responsible for the company’s eCommerce, mobile, direct mail and catalog businesses. She also had responsibility for all OfficeMax direct, loyalty and online marketing efforts. When she joined OfficeMax in early 2006 as Vice President, Marketing and Advertising, she led the company’s strategic marketing planning to build brand relevancy and top-line sales. Julie played a leadership role in repositioning the OfficeMax brand to be more relevant to working women in all areas of the brand experience, from new product and service development to marketing and the overall shopping experience. Before OfficeMax, Julie held marketing positions with Sears, Roebuck & Co., NEC Technologies and Helene Curtis where her responsibilities ranged from brand management to new product development, loyalty and credit marketing, to retail concept store development and CRM. She also spent five years in technical sales with United Technologies. Julie holds a bachelor's in civil engineering from the University of Illinois and a master's from Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management.

Darcy Meyers currently serves as the global innovation insights manager for the Label and Packaging Materials division of Avery Dennison. Avery Dennison is a global materials science and specialized technology company that creates products and solutions to enhance brands, improve consumer product performance and deliver innovative information. Avery Dennison is a global leader in pressure-sensitive technology, self-adhesive base materials and self-adhesive consumer and office products. Darcy joined Avery Dennison in 2010 as the food segment manager for North America. In her current innovation insights role, she is responsible for working with consumer packaged goods companies, private brand retailers and other allied packaging suppliers to understand the voice of the customer in order to guide Avery Dennison’s innovation initiatives in packaging solutions. She joined Avery Dennison from Alcan Packaging - Food Americas where she was a market manager for Meat & Dairy Flexible Packaging. Her professional background also includes marketing roles with Alcoa Inc. where she led development and deployment of 3-5 year business strategies based on customer needs to drive top-line sales growth and maximize profitability for Alcoa’s businesses in the packaging, commercial transportation, automotive, building & construction, energy and metals sectors. Darcy received her bachelor degree in environmental design from Purdue University and a master’s in marketing and international business from the University of Illinois.

Mark Moorhead earned his BS in Marketing from The Pennsylvania State University and attended the executive education program at The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania with an emphasis in marketing and finance. Mark began his employment with WS Packaging Group in September of 2006 and serves as Corporate Director of Marketing. From 1992 to September 2006, he was Director of Marketing for Appleton Papers, a manufacturer of carbonless, thermal and specialty papers. He also previously held marketing and sales positions with Formica Corporation and Eljer Plumbingware. His primary responsibilities include overseeing all marketing activities including managing the company brand, advertising and sales promotion, samples and literature, trade shows and exhibits, strategic planning, product concept prototype development and direct sales support.

Virginia manages a diverse group of retailers across multiple classes of trade both in the US and internationally with the support of her team in Stamford, CT. Prior to joining Daymon, Virginia spent 7 years at Pernod-Ricard/Allied Domeq where her latest role was marketing director on Kahlua. She also worked for marketing and sales at Diageo, MCI/Worldcom, and British American Tobacco. She graduated from Vanderbilt University with a major in economics and then earned her master’s in business administration in finance from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.

Suley Muratoglu is Vice President, Marketing & Product Management for Tetra Pak, Inc., leading food processing and packaging solutions company, where he is responsible for the expansion of the company’s presence within core categories, including dairy, beverage and food. Recently, Suley has overseen the growth of Tetra Recart, the world’s first retortable carton package, with more than 100 SKUs introduced to market in 2010 alone. Suley joined Tetra Pak in 1994 as a sales manager in Istanbul, and his career with the company has taken him to Central Asia, UK and later to the United States. In numerous roles at Tetra Pak, Suley has worked side by side with entrepreneurial brands and retailers, and has witnessed the success of many of Tetra Pak’s customers. Prior to joining Tetra Pak, Suley traded commodities in international markets for the Japanese Conglomerate Nissho Iwai. He holds a bachelor's in engineering from Bogaziçi Üniversitesi in Istanbul, and a master's of business administration from Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management. Suley is available to share his experience in working with both brand owners and private label brands to help them capitalize on opportunities to increase market share and brand awareness.

Robert Parvis is the director of packaging at Sam’s Club. Robert is responsible for packaging across all parts of the Sam’s Club business, including private brands, national brands, and direct imports. He and his team work with buyers, product suppliers, and packaging suppliers to optimize packaging for the club environment with a focus on safety, efficiency, and interaction with our members. In addition to multiple management positions within the packaging department, Robert has also lead a supply chain team at Sam’s Club responsible for cost savings and integrating with the buyers. He worked at Clorox in packaging research and development prior to joining Sam’s Club. Robert has a bachelor's in mechanical engineering from University of California at Berkeley.

Sal directs corporate innovation strategy and new product development and new product marketing for Ampac. He has 29 years experience in the flexible packaging industry with the majority of his career spent in product and market development. Previous to his tenure at Ampac, Sal was America's Market segment manager for the four core markets of confection, snack foods, biscuits and bakery, and ice cream for ExxonMobil’s Films Business. Sal has a bachelor's and a master's from Rochester Institute of Technology, ten US patents and is an adjunct faculty member at University of Cincinnati and Rochester Institute of echnology. He is a frequent industry speaker and trade journal contributor. Recent speaking engagements include PackExpo Innovation Stage and the Global Pouch Conference.

Carol’s current responsibilities include leading strategic initiatives on accounts such as 7-Eleven, H-E-B, and Topco membership accounts, as well as leading the marketing team in corporate new business development and thought leadership for Daymon’s partners. Prior to joining Daymon Worldwide, Carol served as vice president for DeVries Public Relations, working on key accounts such as Procter & Gamble and PepsiCo’s Tropicana brand. Carol received classic brand marketing experience over more than 13 years with CPG companies across all disciplines. Additionally, for the last five years, Carol has served as CMO on the board of The Foundation for Grieving Children, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting children’s health and well being in times of loss or crisis. Carol is a graduate of the University of North Carolina, was awarded Progressive Grocer’s Top Women in Grocery for Senior Level Executives in 2010, and has attended Executive Leadership programs such as the Center for Creative Leadership.