Dr. Alan C. Middleton

Canada’s leading marketing authority and author
"Trends in Consumer and Business behavior and the role of direct marketing strategies"

Alan commenced his career in advertising with the J. Walter Thompson (JWT) advertising agency in London, England and after four years, imigrated to Canada. There, Alan joined JWT Toronto eventually becoming Vice- President/Client Services Director, managing the accounts of Bank of Montreal, Kodak, and Pepsi Canada. In 1982 Alan was appointed President of Enterprise Advertising Associates, a JWT subsidiary. In his seven years there revenues and profits more than doubled and high profile accounts such as IBM, Pitney Bowes, Samsung and Speedy Muffler were won . Alan has also served as President/CEO of JWT Japan, the third largest operation in JWT worldwide working for DeBeers, Esso, Ford, Kelloggs, Kodak, RJ Reynolds, Shiseido, Unilever and Warner Lambert and added Kraft General Foods, Nestle-Macintosh, and Haagen-Dazs, In 1990 Alan was made Executive Vice President and a Board Director of the worldwide company.

Since 1992 Alan has taught Consumer and Organizational Buyer Behavior, International Marketing, International Strategy, Marketing Communications, Not-for-Profit Marketing and Marketing Management in the BBA and MBA programs at York University's Schulich School of Business. In 2001 he became executive director. He is a co-founder of the ‘Cassies’, the only advertising awards in Canada to recognize business results. He co-authored the book “Advertising Works II”, and the reports on MarCom PBR, and MarCom ROI for the Association of Canadian Advertisers. He writes a monthly column for “Marketing Magazine”.

In January 2005 he was inducted into the Canadian Marketing Hall of Legends in the Mentor category. Alan is a frequent speaker at conferences in North America on subjects relating to marketing or conducting business internationally.

Keith Fagan

Director, Abacus Canada
“The Break Even Point – Analyzing the ROI Between Segmented and Unaddressed Circulation Strategies”

Keith Fagan is Director of Sales for Abacus Canada. Abacus Canada helps catalogers, retailers and other direct response mailers use transactional data combined with modeling techniques to ensure profitable mail campaigns.

In his role, Keith oversees the account management of Abacus Canada customers, including client consultation and recommendations, annual circulation planning, and customer support. Keith has also played an integral role in the planning and rollout of the Abacus Canada business, which officially launched in May 2005.

Keith’s Abacus career began in 1996 and he has held various roles since including Director of Technology Sales, where he helped Abacus identify new markets and products in the U.S. market. He later helped Abacus expand into the Japan market in a similar position to his current role.

Prior to joining Abacus, Keith was the Marketing Director for The Celebration Fantastic Catalog in San Francisco. In this role, he oversaw all marketing activities—including catalog circulation—and propelled the start-up company to annual sales of over $8 million in just 6 years.

Keith holds a B.A. from Middlebury College, Vermont and completed graduate course work at New York University and UC Berkeley.

Susanne Hornikel

President of Direct Success
“Successful Strategies for European Market Entry”

Susanne Hornikel, president of Direct Success, a leading direct marketing consultancy firm, has a long history of counseling leading direct retail merchants on successful strategies in the European marketplace. Amongst the clientele that rely on the expertise of DIRECT SUCCESS include Baron Philippe de Rothschild, Cyrillus, Daxon, Editions Dupuis, Françoise Saget, GarpaLufthansa, Swiss Post International, Unicef, Vega, and Viking Office Supplies. Susanne is a seasoned speaker and has spoken on the topic of international market expansion at such conferences as the Direct Marketing Association’s annual conference.

Joseph Ashworth

President of Saddleworth Consulting
"More effective catalogue pages: connecting with your customer"

Joseph Ashworth has almost 30 years' experience in catalogue and internet publishing including over 25 years with Sears Canada. His roles have included copywriter, print buyer, manager of electronic page makeup, and manager of advertising production.

From 1998 to 2002 he was General Manager of Canada's largest in-house advertising department, leading a team of over 120 artists, writers, editors, graphic operators and internet developers in the annual production of 8,000 catalogue pages, as well as 20,000 internet items and hundreds of pieces of support advertising.

While working at Sears, Joseph co-founded JB Direct, which for three years created all of Sears Canada's statement envelope inserts, as well as print and radio advertising for Lennox, and other clients.

Saddleworth Consulting advises clients on all aspects of catalogue advertising and production from concept to customer.

Joseph has taught the techniques of copywriting in the Graphic Arts programme of George Brown Community College, and has been a featured speaker at the Gravure Association of America's Catalogue and Insert Conference and the RAC conference and a guest speaker at Ryerson University Business School. He has a degree in English Literature from the University of Toronto.

• Facts, Features, and Benefits: giving your creative team the right tools
• Focusing your content on the Customer
• Presenting information graphically to keep your customer's interest

Lauren Moir

Vice President and Divisional Manager, Alchemy

Lauren is Vice President and Divisional Manager of Alchemy, the digital retail division of St. Joseph Content. Alchemy is a leader in the strategic development and implementation of digital solutions in today's retail environments, and counts Sears Canada, Office Max, The Beer Store and others among their clients. Prior to heading Alchemy, Lauren has spent the past 23 years producing some of Canada's most innovative retail marketing content for in-store marketing, retail insert advertising and catalogue usage in both print and digital media. Previous to heading up Alchemy, Lauren was VP Creative and Content Development for Pi Media overseeing all creative and content for the Sears Canada client, consisting of 20,000 pages annually.

Rick French

CEO and President, French West Vaughan

Rick French is president & chief executive officer of French/West/Vaughan, one of the country’s largest independently-owned public relations firms with offices in Raleigh, North Carolina and New York City. Mr. French’s firm, which in 2004 was named “National Consumer Agency of the Year” by the Holmes Report and currently ranks among the nation’s 25 largest PR agencies according to PR Week Magazine, represents some of the country’s leading companies and brands, including Canada Post Borderfree, Wrangler, Diageo, Pfizer, the Coca-Cola Company, Ford Motor Company, and VF Corporation. He and his firm have won over 100 regional, national and international public relations awards since the firm was founded a decade ago.

He currently serves on the national board of directors for the Council of PR Firms and has held previous board positions with the Public Relations Society of America and the International Association of Business Communicators, as well as the American Advertising Federation. Mr. French currently sits on nearly a dozen civic and corporate boards and last year co-authored a book focused on public relations ‘best practices’ that is now in its third print run.

Susan Moore

Executive Vice President, Director of Account Management, Wunderman Canada

Susan brings more than 20 years of experience both agency- and client-side to the relationship marketing industry. Susan began her career working for not-for-profit organizations, developing and growing catalogue merchandising fund-raising programs. She extended this expertise to Canadian cataloguer Regal Greetings & Gifts, for six years with responsibility for marketing services, acquisition and loyalty marketing programs.

Joining Wunderman in 1997, Susan has led accounts for clients in a variety of categories including loyalty marketing, financial services, consumer packaged goods and commercial crown corporations such as Canada Post and the Royal Canadian Mint. Susan is expert at B2C and B2B marketing, acquisition and customer relationship programs.

Richard McLaughlin

Vice Chair of the Board of Directors for the Canadian Marketing Association

Richard started his career with 10 years in packaged goods marketing and complemented his marketing experience with 7 years of general management in the services and retail sectors. In 1997 he joined RBC Royal Bank to act as a change agent for the introduction of a new CRM program and strategy. During his time at RBC he held the executive positions of Vice President, CRM and Information Management; Vice President, Growth Markets, a group of segments representing over $3 billion worth of revenue and finally Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer for RBC Royal Bank.

Today, Richard is considered one of Canada's leading marketing specialists, consulting for blue chip clients. He is also the current Vice Chair of the Board of Directors for the Canadian Marketing Association.

Steve August

Operational Vice President of Customer Marketing, Brookstone Inc.

Since 2001 Steve has overseen internet marketing, circulation planning and customer analytics for Brookstone’s two titles:Brookstone and Brookstone’s Hard to Find Tools. Prior to joining Brookstone, Steve was Director of Circulation at Staples Direct, a leading office supply retailer, where he spent six years in various marketing roles. Brookstone, Inc. is a product development and specialty retail company that operates over 300 stores nationwide.

Selena McLachlan

Marketing Manager, Mountain Equipment Cooperative

Selena McLachlan is the Marketing Manager for Mountain Equipment Cooperative (MEC). In her role, Selena oversees national marketing programs including segment strategies. Prior to MEC, Selena was the Program Marketing Manager for Vancity Credit Union. She last spoke at the Retail Gift Show in Vancouver.

Harry Henderson

Multi-channel Sales and Service Manager, Mountain Equipment Cooperative

Harry leads the Mountain Equipment Cooperative (MEC) Service Centre, which provides phone and email service to MEC Members across Canada and around the world. He is also responsible the integration of service delivery and sales development across MEC's web, phone and brick & mortar channels.

Michael DeSimone

Senior Vice President, E4X

Industry veteran Michael DeSimone joined E4X's management team in 2004 to lead the multicurrency services and technology firm's sales and marketing efforts. DeSimone's experience prior to E4X includes senior positions within major financial corporations such as Travelex, Citibank and Thomas Cook Financial Services. In his various roles, DeSimone has worked closely with many organizations, including Visa, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of New York and the Royal Bank of Scotland. He has overseen the development and launch of several internet-based trading, FX, and payments systems for both the personal and commercial segments and his insight has lead to frequent speaking engagements at industry and vertical events including Etail, the Direct Response Forum, NACHA's Council for Electronic Billing and Payment and Global Payments Forum and the IATA Annual Treasury Conference.

Michael LeBlanc

General Manager/Director - Shopping, CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc.

Michael is responsible for Shopping at both at the national and local level for CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest Mediaworks Publications Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of CanWest Global Communications Corp. CanWest, an international media company, is Canada's largest media company.

Armed with a B.A. from Carleton University and a M.B.A. from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, Michael established his expertise in product and marketing management at Black & Decker, made his move into the virtual world when he joined Levi Strauss & Co. Canada, and most recently worked at Hudson's Bay Company, Canada's largest department store retailer, where he was a Director in their CRM division. Michael also orchestrated Hbc's business to consumer online strategy, including the launch of Hbc.com, now one of Canada's top online eCommerce/shopping destinations.

Michael is a well seasoned speaker and has presented at such prestigious events as the Canadian National Database Marketing Conference in Toronto, the Intercontinental Group of Department Stores 2004 Loyalty Marketing Conference in Stockholm, Sweden, and the Association for the Advancement of Relationship Marketing. He is also an active member of the Canadian Marketing Association, including co-chairing the 2005 and upcoming 2006 Digital Marketing Conference.