Erik was born in Rotterdam in 1966 and graduated Business Economics in 1989 at the Erasmus University. He accumulated huge commercial strategic experience during positions at companies as Foot Locker, Levi Strauss and Asics, as well on retail as on the wholesale part of the business. Erik moved into travel retail with Dufry Eurasia, based in Sharjah U.A.E., in June 2007. At present time, Erik is leading Dufry’s operations in the Middle East, India and Asia Pacific, where his main focus has been, is and will be, people. It is all about people. Erik believes that if you are able to keep your people productive and happy, you will go a long way!
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.
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.
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 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 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 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 (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 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 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.
