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Robert Thorpe

Providing brand owners and their retail customers with innovation, strategy and design for over 20 years, Robert is the joint Managing Director of dc-activ; one of Europe’s most respected retail activation agencies.

Robert has worked on projects across the world in all channels for clients including Nestlé, Estée Lauder, Colgate, Diageo, Coca-Cola, Tesco, M&S and Imperial Tobacco.

Over the past 3 years, Robert has been credited for building and ensuring the success of dc-activ’s travel retail business unit. As Nestlé ITR’s lead activation agency, he has worked closely with Alan Brennan and his team to develop the industry-leading Perfect Store™ initiative.

Using his wealth of experience and the very latest in design technology, Robert is able to provide his clients with an unparalleled competitive edge in the ever- changing, fast-developing travel retail industry. His drive and determination has ensured that many of the activations actually land in-store, with results that continue to delight retailers and their shoppers.

Deepak Talwar

Mr. Deepak Talwar, a Graduate in Commerce with Honours from Sri Ram College of Commerce, University of Delhi, is the Principal and founder of DTA Consulting. He established the firm in 1979 for undertaking activities in the Public Affairs domain, at a time when the Indian economy was still closed to Foreign Investment. DTA Consulting has navigated the entry of some of the world’s largest corporations into the country and assisted many in enhancing their business in India.

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Jean-Charles Séité

Jean-Charles has over 25 years experience in the cosmetics and luxury goods industries, the last 15 of which have been with The Estée Lauder Companies in several pivotal roles. He commenced working with Estée Lauder Companies in South Korea as General Manager of the affiliate and subsequently moved on to be General Manager of Clinique in Japan, followed by GM of Darphin in France.

In his present role he is responsible for the ELC Travel Retailing business in Europe, Middle East and Africa which has expanded substantially and delivered year on year sales growth during his tenure. Jean-Charles is well travelled and has lived and worked in France, UK, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Stefan Pichler

Stefan Pichler joined Jazeera Airways K.S.C., a public listed airline on the Kuwait Stock Exchange, in June 2009 as the CEO. He launched a successful turnaround program in the same year and since July 2010 the company has returned to sustainable profitability, exceeding analyst’s expectations every month. For 2011, the carrier reported an operating profit margin of 25.6 %, the second highest in the airline industry. Stefan is responsible of the future growth strategy and regional expansion of one of the few profitable regional airline groups.

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Glen Morgan

Glen Morgan moved to Abu Dhabi three years ago when he joined luxury travel retailer DFS as Vice President of Retail Operations. An experienced retailer, he began his career with Marks & Spencer in the UK where he held a number of positions in various stores over his 14 years of service.

In 2002, Glen joined M.H. Al Shaya where he held several key management roles – the last of which was as Senior Operations Manager for Debenhams, Middle East where he was responsible for 20 stores across six Middle East countries. He was the General Manager of M.A.P Luxury Division Indonesia, where he was responsible for luxury brands such as Harvey Nichols, Armani, Ferragamo, Loewe, and Max Mara, prior to joining DFS Abu Dhabi.

Dr. Peter Mohn

Dr. Peter Mohn (42) graduated as a Psychologist and earned a Ph.D. in Business Psychology at the University of Göttingen, Germany. Peter is of Norwegian origin, has lived in Denmark, Belgium, The Netherlands, Finland, UK and Germany and lives in Switzerland since 2002. Peter has been working for various leading global market research agencies since 1993 and has been in top management positions since 2000. He has been specializing in Travel Retail research since 2004 and consults various leading brands as well as shop operators in this field.

Based at Lake Geneva, m1nd-set is specialized in Travel Retail and Airport marketing research & consulting on a global basis. m1nd-set conducts consumer research at airports, at border shops, on ferries and cruises on over 60 markets worldwide for global Travel Retail brands as well as operators, airports etc. m1nd-set conducts quantitative and qualitative research on many different subjects, such as Travel Retail shopping motivation & behaviour, mystery shopping, brand awareness and evaluation, price elasticity (conjoint surveys), promotion effectiveness, observation of shoppers, travel retail exclusive product testing, segmentation surveys etc.

Stuart McGuire

Stuart McGuire is the founder and CEO of Scorpio Worldwide, a leading supplier of branded goods to the inflight and travel retail market.

Scorpio’s portfolio of products includes fine fragrances, cosmetics, watches, jewellery, electronics and novelty goods. The company was recently voted Supplier of the Year at the prestigious DFNI Awards in 2012 and been awarded Supplier of the Year three times at the annual Airline Retail Conference.

Today, the company works with most of the world’s airlines and is one of the largest suppliers to many airlines and concessionaires globally. It is also a growing force in the travel retail industry.

Stuart founded the company in 1995, and hails from a family with over 40 years’ experience in the inflight and travel retail business.

Anne Kavanagh

Anne has specialised in Travel Retail for over 15 years, developing a unique service in her PR communications agency, Kavanagh Communications, alongside extensive experience in the European retail sector.  The award-winning agency represents all sectors of Travel Retail with a global portfolio of consumer brands, retailers, airports, border stores, service providers, airlines, cruise and railway retail from Uruguay to Singapore.

The agency’s mission is to connect clients with their own B2B and B2C customers, directly impacting commercial performance with a tailored strategic approach.  Vitally, this approach reaches beyond traditional media coverage and right to the heart of customer engagement in Travel Retail and related sectors such as airports, airlines and luxury brands.  Holistic strategies include creative use of multi-channel communications platforms (including social media), Travel Retail trade, national press and lifestyle magazines, TV and radio, digital, as well as employee engagement programmes and direct customer initiatives, including editorial input on tender programmes.

Kapil Kaul

Kapil is based in the New Delhi office of CAPA, which was established in April 2003. He has 20 years experience in commercial, corporate management and strategy consulting areas of the aviation and hospitality industry in India. Kapil has led a number of consulting, research & capital raise advisory projects in India including airline start-up business and financial planning, operational reviews and airport consortia advisory.

Kapil has led and advised over 40 clients over the last 8 years for Indian and global companies on a wide variety of areas like airport privatization, airline start-ups and due-diligence, travel distribution and regulatory advice. At CAPA, Kapil has been responsible for the strategic direction of the South Asian operations, which has included the diversification of the core consulting and research business into areas such aircraft advisory, capital raising, knowledge process outsourcing and aviation education and training.

Kapil has previously worked with ITC, EWA, Air Sahara (Now Jetlite), Crown Air, Aviation Resources Group and has also been advisor to Kuoni Travel Holdings, before joining CAPA.
Kapil has comprehensive knowledge of the Indian aviation industry and is member of the CIIs National Committee on Aviation and Tourism, Civil Aviation Safety and Economic Advisory Council, DGCA’s traffic regulatory committee, NTDCs aviation sub-group, and MOCA’s Committee on studying CAA model. He was recently listed on Aviation Business Power 50 list.
Kapil holds a BSC from Kashmir University and has completed a two year marketing and management programme with ITC.

David Judge

David is an accomplished brand and retail experience designer with 22 years in the industry working with some of the best agencies in the world (Landor, Conran and Imagination) and creating multi awarding winning experiences for global brands such as adidas, Virgin, Diagio, M&S, McLaren, BP, BAT, Ford, DeBeers, P&G, IBM, DVLA, PWC, Tropicana, Fred Perry and MTS.

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