Contributors

MARIA DUBUC

Marketing By Design, President, Big Red Rooster, Vice President, Maria is a 25 year pioneer in creative management, Maria’s key talent is to combine a career’s worth of branding experience into something personal and unique for each and every client. Smart & Final, The Home Depot, 7-Eleven, and PriceSmart are among the retailer programs she currently runs.

CHRISTOPHER DURHAM

Christopher Durham is the president of the Retail Brands Institute. Prior to this he founded the groundbreaking site My Private Brand. He is the co-founder of The Vertex Awards. He began his retail career building brands at Food Lion and Lowe’s Home Improvement. Durham has worked with retailers around the world, including Albertsons, Family Dollar, Petco, Staples, Office Depot, Best Buy, Metro Canada. Durham has published seven definitive books on private brands, including Fifty2: The My Private Brand Project and Vanguard: Vintage Originals.

HANS KRAAK

is educated in biology and journalism and wrote two books about nutrition and health. He worked for the Dutch ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food quality and the Netherlands Nutrition Centre. As editor in chief he publishes in Voeding Nu, a business to business platform on food and health, as a food and wine writer he publishes in Meininger’s Wine Business International and reports for PLMA Live EU and PLMA USA.

KATIE LOCKE

If you’ve ever met Katie, you’ve seen or heard her excitement for building or rebuilding brands. Her passions also include just about every facet of food and eating experiences. For the past 9 years, Katie has worked in Sales & Marketing for Marketing by Design (MBD), a branding and packaging design agency specializing in high volume retailer programs. At MBD, Katie gets to blend her passions by talking to thousands of National and Private brand leaders, mostly in the food industry, about expanding & enhancing their presence in market and on shelf.

KARA MIENCIER

Kara Miencier, Private Brand Sales Executive for Paramount Roasters, has a passion for store brands and the coffee industry. As a Board of Directors Member for Women Impacting Storebrand Excellence, Kara finds great value in the diversity and inclusion mission of WISE and bridging the experience gap between generations.

GEORGE PURO

President of the Puro Research Group, a market intelligence firm specializing in consumer insights, competitive/market intelligence and analysis. Puro’s services are designed to keep you abreast of the latest trends, make you look smart in presentations and help guide decision-making. The company has provided organizations and companies, ranging from Fortune 100 companies to startups, with aha! insights about competitors, customers and industries in a variety of topics and industries, including consumer products; retail; transportation, travel and hospitality; healthcare and health insurance;

SAMANTHA ROMANO Manager, Marketing Strategy, SGK.

With more than 15 years of experience in coordinating the proposal process from inception to final submittal, Samantha is a highly experienced proposal writer, having worked on a wide range of proposals, RFPs, RFIs, statements of qualification, and other sales-related documents to ensure a unified message and voice is achieved in key client deliverables.

PERRY SEELERT

A retail branding and marketing expert, with a passion for challenging conventional strategy and truths. Perry is the Strategic Partner and Co-founder of Emerge, a strategic marketing consultancy dedicated to helping Retailers, Manufacturers and Services grow exponentially and differentiate with purpose.