IMELCO #2022 Convention
SEPTEMBER 28-30th / Dubrovnik, Croatia
Speakers
Keynote speaker
Ian Heller
Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer, Distribution Strategy Group
Keynote speech: The Future Proof Distributor: Digital Strategies, Sales Structures and Value-Added Services
The son of a German father and a British mother, Ian Heller was born in Canada a year before the family immigrated to the United States.
He began his distribution career as a part-time truck unloader for Grainger in 1984. In his fifteen-year career there, Ian rose to Vice President of Marketing before accepting the position of Executive Vice President of eBusiness for GE Capital Railcar. He subsequently served as Senior Vice President of Marketing and Merchandising for Newark Electronics and Vice President, North America for office supplies distributor Corporate Express.
Ian left the corporate world to start a consulting company, offering strategic planning and marketing services for distributors. After seven years, he sold that company and became the Vice President of Marketing and eCommerce for White Cap – a construction supplies distributor in Atlanta, GA.
Ian was at White Cap for seven years as part of a leadership team that grew it from $850M in annual revenues to $2.5B.
Ian earned his Bachelor of Arts Degree in History from Roosevelt University in Chicago and his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. At Kellogg, his classmates chose him to be the graduation speaker and the Dean’s Office gave him a special award for service to his class.
Ian founded his current company, Distribution Strategy Group, in 2020 and focuses on analyzing the distribution industry in North America and Europe. He develops webinars, writes whitepapers, speaks at conferences, hosts podcasts, serves on Boards, and works with senior executives to help them prepare for disruption, develop successful digital and marketing strategies and gain market share.
Ian and his wife Penny live in Longmont, Colorado. They are avid motorcyclists; they love to travel, and Ian is an avid amateur photographer. They have two adult sons: One leads interactive design for a software company in Chicago, Illinois. The other is a police officer in Durango, Colorado.
Moderator
Paul Barrett
A successful film and theatre actor, Paul Barrett has become over the past thirty years a reference in facilitating and presenting corporate and high-profile public events, whether it be annual conventions, seminars, award ceremonies or media presentations.
Paul has shared the stage with world-renowned authority figures like Kofi Annan, Nobel Prize winners, political and business thought leaders like Jean-Marc Ayraullt, Craig Venter, and top international and European CEOs.
Widely accepted as an authority on presenting and the art of communicating to a live audience, Paul approaches each event as a unique challenge with its own unique characteristics and possibilities.
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