The Retail Conference

Details of speakers confirmed for The Retail Conference 2010 follow. More fantastic speakers will be announced in the coming months!

One of the unique features of The Retail Conference is that we ensure that the speakers who deliver main conference seminars are from retail organisations. If we accept any who aren't, we can promise that they will always represent a leading expert in a relevant field and that their talk will add value to the event - they will never, ever be allowed to sell! This way we keep our promise to be "The Retail Conference - Delivered by Retailers, For Retailers."

Clive West, Operations Director - New Business, ASDA

Hash Ladha, Group Multi-Channel Director, Aurora Fashions

Catie Callender, Managing Director EMEA, Crabtree & Evelyn.

Andy Parkinson, Retail Director, BrightHouse

Thomas Power, Chairman, Business Social Networking, Ecademy

Ian Woosey, Group IT Director, Carpetright

Naomi Paget, Head of Customer Relationship Marketing at T.M.Lewin

Nick Tadd, Leading expert in online social communications for business

Hilton Eachus, Customer Delivery Manager, ASOS.com

Tony Carr, Head of Distribution, House of Fraser.

Duncan Hallas, VP Business Development, UK, Netbiscuits Duncan.

Clive West is Operations Director - New Business for ASDA.

Clive has worked at Asda for twelve years across a number of functions including Store Manager, Regional Coach, Local Marketing and Community Engagement. More recently he held the positions of Loss Prevention Director and Retail Operations Director at George. He was appointed as Operations Director for New Business in November 2008 and has responsibility for delivering the aggressive sales and profit growth of our online business.

Prior to his time with Asda, Clive worked for Sainsburys for 13 years, starting as a trainee manager ending as a general store manager having managed most of the stores trading functions.

Clive and his partner have 5 teenage daughters which keeps him in touch with the reality of real life. His past-times include keeping fit by running and playing competitive squash.

ASDA can trace its roots back to two Yorkshire brothers, Peter and Fred Asquith, and a group of Yorkshire farmers who formed Hindell's Dairies in the 1920s. In 1965, Asquith and Dairies joined forces to become ASDA.

In June 1999, ASDA was acquired by Wal-Mart Stores Inc, and in recent years, has grown to become Britain's second largest supermarket. ASDA employs more than 165,000 colleagues, serving more than 18 million customers from 371 stores.

In the summer of 2009, ASDA received Britain's lowest price supermarket award for the twelfth consecutive year.

Also in 2009, ASDA colleagues raised more than £2 million for local charities across the UK and almost £3.3 million for our national charities including Tickled Pink, Children in Need and Tommy's the Baby Charity.

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Hash Ladha is the Group Multi-Channel Director at Aurora Fashions.

Aged 35, Hash lives in London and East Sussex. He studied at the University of Wales and is a Law graduate. In 1995, he joined Evans as a Marketing Assistant, moving to Topman as Marketing Manager in 1997, followed in 1999 as Marketing Manager of BHS Menswear and Home, 2000 Marketing Controller at Austin Reed, 2002 Head of Marketing at Dorothy Perkins, 2003 Business Development Director at New Look and 2004 Marketing Director at New Look. He joined ASOS.com as Marketing & Operations Director in 2007 and has recently been appointed to the newly created position of Group Multi Channel Director for Aurora Fashions which owns Karen Millen, Coast, Oasis and Warehouse.

Aurora Fashions owns, develops and manages the performance of some of the UK's most respected women's fashion brands - Karen Millen, Coast, Warehouse and Oasis, which are all aimed at the higher end of the market. The brands operates out of 1500 stores and out of 45 countries.

The group is focused on providing an environment that enables each individual brand to flourish independently, while optimising economies of scale by sharing a common infrastructure for operations, finance and senior management resource.

Karen Millen brings 'designer-wear' to the high street with a bold approach to clothing for the body conscious cosmopolitan woman. It is a luxury brand delivering high quality, beautifully designed clothing, footwear and accessories.

Coast is a premium brand and stands out in the market by offering style conscious women of all ages a beautiful range of design-led, contemporary and well-made occasionwear.

Warehouse provides 'design for the high street' and is a brand that is aimed at 18-30 year old women who are knowledgeable about trends and fashion, appreciate design and quality, and are body confident, independent and love shopping.

Oasis is well established on the high street as an aspirational fashion brand. Targeted at fashion aware 18-30 year old independent women, it offers a broad spectrum of products comprising clothing and accessories including footwear, jewellery, bags and belts.

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Catie Callender is Managing Director EMEA for Crabtree & Evelyn.

The company operates over 400 stores worldwide as well distribution via Wholesale accounts and ecommerce in key markets.

Catie started her career in her native country of Australia with Procter and Gamble in sales and marketing. Following an MBA at IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland, she joined Nike. Roles at Nike included European Marketing for the Footlocker business, which represents 20% of Nike's global sales. Catie moved to the UK with Nike to lead the development of their women's business and subsequently took on Business Leader roles for the Running category and Brand Events.

In 2001 Catie joined Clear Channel Entertainment and Managing Director for UK Theatres which included 28 live theatres and 2000 employees. During this time she also had several non-executive roles including the NSPCC, Theatrical Management Association, and board member for Creative and Cultural Skills.

Catie was Managing Director for Neal's Yard Remedies before joining Crabtree and Evelyn. She is a Non Executive Director for Elizabeth Shaw Limited.

Catie has 2 children and enjoys travelling with her family, running, skiing, theatre and reading.

Crabtree & Evelyn has been a pioneer in botanical formulations for over 30 years. By blending nature and science with tradition and innovation, the brand has created an award winning collection of benefit rich bath, body and home care.

Crabtree & Evelyn's heritage is reflected in its name: Crabtree, from the crabapple tree, the original species from which all cultivated apple trees have derived, and Evelyn from John Evelyn, the 17th century renaissance Englishman, who wrote one of the first important works on conservation.

Crabtree & Evelyn's creative partner is model, author and designer India Hicks. India has launched two fragrance collections with Crabtree & Evelyn, inspired by her Bahamian life; India Hicks Island Living and India Hicks Island Night. Both fragrances were awarded prestigious CEW awards.

In 2010, Crabtree & Evelyn added to its respected hand care range with the launch of a new fragrance; Citron, Honey and Coriander. This was followed by the introduction of the Heritage Soap collection; an updated version of the soaps which proved so popular when Crabtree & Evelyn first began. A truly global brand, Crabtree & Evelyn has operations in more than 40 countries and over 6,000 selling locations and 500 concept stores worldwide.

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Andy Parkinson is Retail Director for BrightHouse.

Andy joined BrightHouse in 1995, almost at the inception of the Company. Prior to his current position as Retail Director he held the position of Head of Service during a period of transformation. Before this Andy was in various Field Management roles including Divisional Controller for the Central Division and Regional Manager in the North-West.

Prior to BrightHouse Andy worked in store management roles for retailers Superdrug and Comet.

Outside of work Andy holds a keen interest in football and supports Manchester United.

Andy was born in Manchester and is from a family of Greengrocers. He has 4 Children, varying in age from 1 to 19 years. In addition to enjoying a young family, Andy is a Fellow of The Royal Society for the Arts and a member of The Institute of Directors.

BrightHouse is a national retail chain specialising in the sale of home electronic and domestic appliances, household furniture and related products, on a 'rent to own' affordable weekly payment basis. BrightHouse provide customers access to a choice of products, operating without the normal requirement of large deposits and credit ratings. With more than 2,200 staff UK-wide, BrightHouse is a major employer in the local communities where its 199 stores are located.

BrightHouse supports NSPCC, the UK's leading children's charity that specialises in child protection and the prevention of cruelty to children.

In 2008, BrightHouse was UK Winner in the Green Apple Environmenal Best Practice Award. Moreover, the company won the 'Best High Street Retailer' category of the 2008 National Recycling Awards Scheme.

The process of striving for more coherent environmental protection practices, has been a valuable contributer to further enhancing employee morale, as well as yielding efficiency benefits of some £250,000 per annum for the business.

BrightHouse is ranked 219th in the 2009 Sunday Times mid-market top track 250 companies

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Thomas Power is Chairman of Business Social Network, Ecademy (www.ecademy.com.)

Thomas is involved at the heart of the changing way we do business in the 21st Century. He believes that networking will be THE key skill for business people in the 21st Century. He believes that, as more of the working populations of the Western economies become self employed, it will be a case of Network or Starve.

Thomas walks the talk! At just 45 years of age he has met over 25,000 people since 1982 and continues to hold 1,000 one-to-one meetings per year with new and existing contacts. His detailed memory allows him to connect people together based only on information learned in meetings and from their Ecademy profiles.

In late 2004, Thomas launched Life Membership of Ecademy for those members seeking accelerated networking. Instant trust from life membership has been crucial in building the club to 600 members in four years. Members pay a fee to join and access membership benefits. Thomas sees this form of chargeable club as the future for many large and small service businesses migrating from consulting labour based businesses to subscription models.

His down to earth speaking style, and the wealth of content he has to call upon, makes him a popular speaker. His combative and controversial style inspires his audiences to rethink their current strategies for marketing to include networking, even to place it at the forefront of their thinking.

Ecademy is Thomas' testimonial that his formula works. He says of himself "I definitely am not a consultant. I definitely am an entrepreneur. My expertise resides in scouting ahead to identify the safest path others should follow. I love to teach. I am a teacher."

Thomas is married to Ecademy founder, Penny, and has 3 children. He lives in Surrey. His life is dedicated to his family and his work - specifically building Ecademy. Thomas have no hobbies other than the Internet, dog walking and the very occasional game of golf or tennis. He works 100 hours per week... but with work being his passion it isn't hard to see why!

Ecademy was founded in February 1998 by Thomas' wife, Penny Power, and now has over 500,000 users in 234 countries.

Ecademy serves the 100 million business people who work from home providing support, contacts, collaboration, opportunities and most importantly a safe environment for people to meet, talk and network. There are 500 face-to-face meetings a month worldwide.

Penny and Thomas have written 7 books - Know Me, Like Me, Follow Me is the latest to be published - Penny Power: Know Me, Like Me, Follow Me...

The Ecademy phenomenon is set to continue. " Very soon you will find an Ecademy friend in every city in the world you travel to. A real friend, an Ecademy friend, a tolerant friend, a peaceful friend, a friend who will point you in the right direction locally and perhaps even serve you some chardonnay too!"

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Ian Woosey, Group IT Director, Carpetright

As the Group IT Director, Ian is responsible for IT, Central Operations and Multi Channel Development at Carpetright, Europe's largest floor coverings retailer, operating from over 700 stores and two new online businesses.

Over the last 7 years Ian has delivered a complete systems replacement programme across the company, including award winning SAP Head Office and Microsoft Nav store system implementations.

He has also managed the outsourcing/off-shoring of selected IT functions, several acquisitions in the UK and Europe and successfully relocated the Group HQ and warehousing operations to a brand new site in Essex. Most recently, Ian has overseen the creation of two brand new online businesses for the Carpetright group.

Before joining Carpetright, Ian spent several years as a Management Consultant and Programme Manager working with companies such as Homebase, Goldsmiths, Threshers, Whitbread, BT and Argos, specialising in managing and implementing complex business transformation, supply chain and logistics change programmes from both a business and IT perspective.

Earlier in his career, Ian gained extensive general operational management experience at Sainsbury's in a variety of store, area and central management roles.

Carpetright is the largest floor-coverings retailer in Europe, operating from approximately 590 stores in the UK and 120 stores in Europe. Every week Carpetright sells enough carpet to cover the entire length of the M25 - more than 120 miles.

In December 2008 the company completed the acquisition of Sleepright, adding a further 100+ bed stores to the group across the UK.

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Naomi Paget, Head of Customer Relationship Marketing at T.M.Lewin

Naomi joined T.M.Lewin as Home Shopping Marketing Manager four years ago with responsibility for the catalogue and direct mail campaigns winning the company the ECMOD business award for menswear in 2009.

Since she joined the company has grown rapidly and Naomi has developed her role to take on new online marketing challenges, heading up a team, and setting up T.M.Lewin's online community 'Off The Cuff', which launched at the end of 2009. One of the first retail communities, it is proving to be successful in engaging customers with the brand, utilising a combination of instructional videos, blogs and the interactive 'Style Surgery'.

Prior to this, Naomi started out in direct marketing in Germany as part of the Karstadt Quelle group, she then moved back to London to help run the UK division of Maria Donati - a womenswear mail order subsidiary of Karstadt Quelle - as Marketing Executive. She moved on from there to the role of Marketing Manager for Confetti Networks, the wedding specialists, where she spent 3 years developing their catalogue, direct mail and email campaigns as well as live online events. After leaving Confetti, Naomi decided to take her experience in marketing and volunteered to help a couple in Peru market their chocolate business (La Cholita), learning Spanish along the way.

When she isn't working, Naomi loves music and plays keyboards in a band that is about to release their first album. She also enjoys playing tennis, travelling and languages.

T.M.Lewin is one of the leading business wear retailers and one of the oldest, established in 1898 on Jermyn Street. They now have over 75 UK stores together with a strong internet and mail order business, and opened their first franchise stores in Singapore last year. They specialise in dressing the business world with high quality yet affordable shirts, ties, accessories and tailoring for both men and women. Their 4 for £100 multi-buy offer gives them the opportunity to offer incredible value by encouraging customers to buy in bulk. They are known for their quality and attention to detail and still design all their shirts in-house, introducing 100 new patterns every month.

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Rob Collins is Personnel Director of Waitrose, the supermarket division of the employee-owned John Lewis Partnership.

Educated at Edinburgh University, where he read Business Studies and Spanish, Rob spent a year working for textile giant Coats Viyella in Argentina. He joined the John Lewis Department Store Graduate Training Scheme from University in 1993 and held a number of senior roles in the business including Managing Director John Lewis Aberdeen, Managaing Director John Lewis Cribbs Causeway and Director of Selling Support at the company's Head Office in Victoria Street London.

In 2007 Rob moved to Waitrose to establish its ecommerce function with the brief of helping the business realise a key part of its multi-channel ambitions. At the beginning of April this year he was appointed Personnel Director (Waitrose). Rob is a passionate advocate for the vitality and longevity of the Partnership's co-owned business model and believes the Partner/customer/profit circle bestows significant competitive advantage in the marketplace. He sees the successful development of existing and new Partners in a rapidly growing business as the biggest challenge for his directorate. Rob is with three children. In his spare time he enjoys sailing, tennis and fly-fishing, considering himself fortunate to work for a company that owns several productive beats on the River Test, the world's most famous chalkstream.

When Wallace Waite, Arthur Rose and David Taylor opened their first small grocery shop at 263 Acton Hill, West London in 1904, little did they know that within a century the company would have become one of the country's leading food retailers employing more than 42,000 people with 231 branches.

Although the John Lewis Partnership acquired Waitrose in 1937, opening the first Waitrose supermarket in 1955, the genesis of co-ownership had formed much earlier in the mind of the business's Founder Spedan Lewis.

His approach to business had its origins back in the 1920s when he fell from his horse and was forced into convalescence. Appalled by the condition of the workers he saw around him, he used his time to develop an idea for fairer shares in work. At its heart was the principle of co-ownership or, as he put it, a focus on 'cooperative production, the self-governing workshop and partnership for all'.

There was no room for external shareholders in Spedan's vision, their role filled instead by a system of staff councils and forums to apply rigorous checks and balances to management.

Co-ownership principles were set in stone by two Irrevocable Settlements in Trust - one in April 1929 and the other in April 1950. These were supported by a Partnership Constitution which still guides how we work to this day, the business being established 'for the happiness of those who work within it'.

Well, we're now the UK's largest example of employee ownership with more than 69,000 Partners, as our co-owning employees are called, with 42,000 of those in the Waitrose food division.

Co-ownership gives us a sense of collective responsibility with definite trading advantages - our staff turnover is lower; our sickness levels are lower and our culture is different and engaging.

Our attitude to communities, suppliers and customers is different too. Because we're not driven by the need to deliver those short-term gain for external shareholders we can take the long view in everything we do and we believe it is vital to take the time and make the effort to build proper, respectful and sustainable relationships with all our stakeholders, be they Partners, suppliers, customers or the communities where we trade.

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Nick Tadd is widely regarded as one of the foremost authorities on social communications in the U.K. With over 14,000 followers on Twitter and high ranking on various other social and professional networks, Nick has grown a database of approx. 50,000 personal contacts, simply by engaging on the 'social web'.

Nick has a presence on over 60 social / business networking platforms, and is active on 8 of them on a daily basis. He also has a long-running blog at nicksays.typepad.com.

Nick has spoken at over 500 events on social communications, including the LikeMinds Social Media Conference in Exeter and the Africa Gathering in Washington, D.C. He recently returned from Silicon Valley where he met with FaceBook and Google, and some of the world's most influential bloggers, including Louis Gray, who is an advocate of Nick.

A full time professional Landlord and property investor, Nick became fascinated with the social web eight years ago, and is also co-founder of one of the U.K.'s most successful on-line investor and Landlord communities, Property Tribes. (propertytribes.ning.com) He recently launched a sister forum, Social Media Tribes.

Nick now consults for major organisations on implementing social media strategies that gain traction on-line quickly, facilitating community around business, and performing web brand audits using highly sophisticated software that trawls the web for historic and real-time media impressions.

Recent clients include Linda McCartney Food's, Upad, the lettings portal, Drink Me Chai, Africa Gathering, Royal Horticultural Society and Fuji Cameras.

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Hilton Eachus is the Customer Delivery Manager at ASOS.com

Hilton has been with ASOS for 2 years and is responsible for the pack and despatch operations at their fulfilment centre in Hemel Hempstead. He is also responsible for all thing relating to carrier management and developing the ASOS.com delivery proposition, including the award-winning and market leading same day service.

Hilton moved to the UK in 2005 and worked as Supply Chain Manager then as an Operations Manager at John Lewis Direct.

ASOS.com is the UK's largest online-only fashion and beauty store. Primarily aimed at 16-34 year olds, it offers over 157,000 own-label and branded fashion goods. Its full name, As Seen On Screen, was chosen in order to try to show the brand's intention to supply the public with outfits seen on; or similar in style to those worn by celebrities. The references to celebrity style gradually became less common, culminating in the name change to ASOS.

Sales for the financial year ending 31 March 2009 were £165 million. ASOS reported a 100% increase in sales over Christmas 2008, making it the UK's second largest online fashion retailer.

ASOS's headquarters are located in Camden Town. Its main fulfillment centre is in Hemel Hempstead. The company has seen significant growth and now has 5.2 million unique website visitors a month, with over 2.2 million registered users.

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Tony Carr is the Head of Distribution at House of Fraser.

Tony has been with House of Fraser for 2 1/2 years and has management accountability for the transport and warehousing operations that service the 61 store estate as well as the Web store, Outlet and Wedding service.

In the 17 years prior to HoF, Tony has held a range of supply chain, logistics, operations and store management roles for retailers including Matalan, Iceland, Martin Retail Group and Co-op.

House of Fraser is a department store group with 62 enviable locations across the UK and Ireland. As one of the best known names on the high street, House of Fraser has presented customers with an unrivalled nationwide department store for 160 years.

The company was acquired by the Highland consortium in November 2006 marking the beginning an exciting new chapter in its history. The group has annual sales in excess of £1.25bn and employs 6,500 House of Fraser staff and 10,000 concession staff through 5 million sq ft of selling space.

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Duncan Hallas is VP of Business Development, UK for Netbiscuits

Duncan joined Netbiscuits in 2010 as Vice President Business Development for the UK & Ireland, his key responsibilities are to run the commercial operation in London and spread the word about The Netbiscuits Award Winning Mobile Publishing Platform both to key local and multi national brands and mobile service providers.

Prior to Netbiscuits he has held a number of senior commercial roles for pioneering international mobile and Internet communications companies including Skype, mBlox, Netsize & Mobile Streams over the previous 13 years. He is happiest when achieving challenging targets and building and executing go to market strategy.

As a regular participant in events about the mobile sector he lends his expertise in creating mobile propositions, understanding of the mobile landscape and hands on experience of integrating mobile in an operational sense.

Duncan studied Marketing at Leeds Met University and his interests include oenology, cycling, windsurfing & sailing.

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