Michael Barrett started his career in 1995 as a journalist at European news channel Euronews in Lyon before joining the network’s marketing department. Since then he has worked in both media and new media, as well as for an international NGO, specialising in fundraising, marketing and communications.

Michael joined TFWA as Conference & Research Manager in 2006, taking on responsibility for the organisation of the TFWA World Exhibition and TFWA Asia Pacific conferences in Cannes and Singapore as well as the annual MEADFA conference and the inaugural China’s Century Conference held in Beijing in March 2013. Following his relocation to India in July 2010, he was appointed Executive Officer for the Asia Pacific Travel Retail Association (APTRA).

Michael is also Director of Fairetail CRM, a marketing agency he set up in 2011, which provides consumer communication solutions for NGOs, charities and social enterprises. The company operates the solidarity travel and tourism website Soulcialtravel.com.

Dan Cappell is a veteran of the Industry having worked on all three sides of the Trinity, initially during 22 years with Nestle SA, the last ten as General Manager of Nestle International Travel Retail. In 2002 Dan moved to the Middle East as Deputy Managing Director of Abu Dhabi Duty Free & Inflight catering. He then spent a short period of time with Aer Rianta International-Middle East before returning to Abu Dhabi, where he has held a number of key senior roles within the commercial function of Abu Dhabi Airports.

Dan is currently Senior Vice-President Business Development with a wide remit across the airports commercial business that is being led by the Midfield Terminal project. He cites playing golf badly, cooking and reading as his main forms of relaxation.

Paul Topping has been in the duty free business for over 25 years. During this time he has held a number of senior roles, including Managing Director at Alpha Retail International, Managing Director Alpha Asia, President Asia for Aldeasa and Director South East Asia for Gebr Heinemann.

He played a very important role in the public listing of Alpha Airports Group on the UK stock market and was responsible for creating Alpha International’s retail business in the USA, Europe and Asia. This included the first PPP (public private partnership) airport in India, at Cochin, and Orlando Sanford Airport in the USA.

Alpha was the first international retailer to operate in India and Paul was instrumental in creating awareness of the country’s potential by running two successful conferences. He was one of the two founders of the Travel Retail Tsunami charity, supported by the travel retail industry, which built a new village in Sri Lanka to house people made homeless by the December 2004 tsunami. Paul is currently running the “Educate to Protect” campaign to help children to overcome barriers of race, religion and economic hardship.

Paul is an independent main board director of Flemingo International; he is also the part-owner & director of Bangalore Soma Winery and CEO of Tractopping, a travel retail consultancy. He is known as The Wine Man in Sri Lanka, given his involvement in the wine industry in the country over the last ten years. Paul also writes under his pen name, the Whinging Pom.

Keith Hunter is the Chief Retail Officer for Urban-Air Port Ltd (UAP), a cutting-edge company providing innovative ground infrastructure as a service for Future Air Mobility, and is creating a fresh and ambitious retail and advertising division delivering experiential retail for each UAP, sponsorship opportunities and a comprehensive online collaboration of brand and service partners for the UAP App.

Keith also co-founded Hunter Palmer – Global Retail Solutions, a specialist travel retail and food & beverage consultancy, working collaboratively with airports, airlines, operators and brands.

Previously, as Senior Vice President of Qatar Duty Free for Qatar Airways, Keith spearheaded the Hamad International Airport retail, food & beverage and advertising offer, from inception through to the opening and operation and also served as a board member of the Middle East & Africa Duty Free Association (MEADFA) for 5 years.

Stefan is responsible for repositioning Giorgio Armani as an Haute Couture global brand by capitalizing on its high notoriety, its femininity and its selectivity, while at the same time boosting Designer’s fragrances such as Viktor & Rolf or Ralph Lauren and recruiting new consumers to the luxury world with Diesel and Cacharel.

Prior to this assignment Stefan Dembinski was the head of L’Oréal Luxe in Poland developing extensive partnerships (eg. Sephora, Douglas…) and establishing new ways of doing business using the power of the supplier’s brand and the power of the distributor to increase the penetration and transformation rate.

He first joined L’Oréal 18 years ago, when he was part of the pioneering team which convinced duty free retailers to enrich their offer with a whole new offer in mass market; first in Europe and Middle East than creating and developing L’Oréal Paris in the Americas. He successfully helped establish L’Oreal Paris as a key brand in skin care and make up, giving retailers a wide portfolio to attract new customers and increase penetration rates.