John is a frequently requested speaker on the subject of marketing and management at conferences around the US. He also serves as a faculty member for the highly popular Loyalty Marketing Workshop offered throughout the USA by the Direct Marketing Association and COLLOQUY®.

John began his career with Maritz, Inc., a market research and performance incentive firm, where he held senior account management and creative director positions over the course of 22 years. He holds a B.A. in Media and a B.A. in Management from Webster University in St. Louis, MO.

Over his career, John has been involved in a broad range of client initiatives across a variety of verticals including clients such as Norwest Card Services (now Wells Fargo), W. W. Grainger, West Marine, Best Buy, CompUSA, Eddie Bauer, Verizon, Sprint, CitiBank, Speedway SuperAmerica, Exxon Mobil, Chevron Texaco, Valero, Sears Canada, Bell Canada, Microsoft, La Quinta Inns and Suites and Charter Communications.

Craig Landry is Senior Vice President, Partnerships and Rewards for Aeroplan, located in Montréal, Canada. Craig is responsible for the strategic design and execution of Aeroplan’s commercial plan for both accrual and redemption partnerships. At the Group level, Craig is also responsible for international corporate development activities in the Travel industry including the design and launch of new Travel related business ventures.

Craig was one of the founding executives that helped prepare Aeroplan for its IPO in 2005. In previous roles, Craig held several mandates related to Aeroplan’s member value proposition with responsibility for Aeroplan’s portfolio of rewards, product design and management, membership development, supplier chain management, and profitability/cost management. Craig joined Aeroplan in 2003 as Director, Reward Management, later holding the positions of Vice President, Rewards and Vice President, Marketing. Since his arrival at Aeroplan, Craig has led several corporate initiatives, such as ClassicPlus Flight Rewards (real time dynamic pricing) as well as the introduction of many new reward product lines in travel, retail and entertainments sectors. Prior to Aeroplan, Craig held a variety of positions at Air Canada primarily in Pricing, Yield Management and Network Planning.

Originally from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Craig holds an MBA and a Bachelor of Arts, both from McGill University in Montreal.

Simon Hay is a leader in shaping the brand value of consumer packaged goods and retail companies worldwide by developing customer-centric business strategies. His keen insight into shopping patterns combined with the ability to develop actionable marketing and retailing programs have transformed the bottom lines of such giants as Tesco and The Kroger Company and others throughout Europe, Africa and The Americas.

Hay spent nearly a dozen years in the company’s London office, leading the strategies behind the Tesco Clubcard program. This loyalty program moved Tesco from the number two grocery chain to the number one position in a few short years.

Since establishing the US office in 2002, Hay has led the development of the “Customer First” strategy at Kroger, significantly impacting the company’s sales and profit performance.

Prior to joining the dunnhumby team, Hay spent seven years with CACI UK, a company that specializes in geographical information and market analysis. Hay was the company’s principal consultant in its retail division.

Hay graduated from the University of Reading in the UK where he studied Human Geography with a special emphasis on retail location planning.

Lance Blockley is the global Managing Director of Edgar, Dunn & Company, a consultancy firm specialising in payments. He has advised issuers, acquirers, third-party processors, technology providers and payment associations in addressing many of the financial sector’s most significant issues. He has 30 years experience in senior management and consulting in the UK, USA, Asia and Australia. He has pioneered the use of transaction data to underpin marketing strategy development and market segmentation, and was the creator of the firm’s powerful Slice & Dice diagnostic tool. Lance holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University, England and an M.B.A. from IMD, Switzerland. He is a Fellow of both the Australian Institute of Company Directors and the Chartered Management Institute (UK).

Mukund is an experienced specialist in determining per unit loyalty tender cost for airlines and managing related implications. He is currently the Business Finance Manager at Emirates Group IT responsible for all revenues, costs and recharges of IT related costs.

Mukund was also the Finance Manager Head Office Commercial Support at Emirates, where he managed all financial aspects for Revenue Optimisation, Network Sales, Pricing as well as the FFP section. He has been a part of the launch team responsible for planning, developing and implementing financial, commercial and operating processes for the frequent flyer program since inception in 2000.

In 2002 Mukund was a member of the study group created by the International Association of Airline Internal Auditors set up to identify the various control issues and risks associated with frequent flyer programs.

Mukund began his career at Emirates in 1992 working in Internal Audit where his specialization was in audits related to Commercial Operations and In-flight Services.
In 1997 he moved to Systems audit and subsequently moved to Management Finance where he was entrusted with managing the budgeting and MIS reporting for the Emirates Group.

Mr. Brandt is founder of Manta Aviation Insight, a consulting firm focused on corporate development and strategy in the airline industry. In this role he has advised leading airline clients on the topics of economics and value optimization strategies for loyalty programs. Mr. Brandt worked for United Airlines for 14 years in a number of positions in Finance, Marketing and Strategic Planning. Prior to joining United, Mr. Brandt was a propulsion engineer for Rockwell International. Mr. Brandt has an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and a BS in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Illinois.

Marcin Kosciak is a senior consultant at Comarch, one of the leading IT systems integrators on the Polish market and one of the leading global software houses.

Marcin Kosciak’s responsibilities include the development of loyalty and loyalty card systems, and the IT services that accompany them, for large corporations across the globe. From the very beginning of his career at Comarch, Mr. Kosciak has initiated and formulated many innovative solutions that have made their way into Comarch Loyalty Management, one of the world’s most advanced loyalty management systems. His duties also encompass consulting – concept development, the creation of business plans and project management. Mr. Kosciak is the director of the consulting centre responsible for the development strategy for Comarch Loyalty Management.

Marcin Kosciak graduated with a degree in Management from the Krakow University of Economics as well as a degree in Education from Rzeszow University. His past experience includes work as a university lecturer in the area of project management. His current responsibilities – managing multiple projects simultaneously and running workshops both internally as well as for clients – enable him to utilize the skills and knowledge gained from this experience.

Hakan Unlu heads Hitit’s Product Development Team.  Hakan has is an aviation enthsiast since childhood and has over 20 years of professional experience in the airline industry.  His professional career started in the Turkish Airlines IT Department in 1987 where he managed a number of large scale projects.  In 1998 Hakan joined Hitit to lead product development.  Under his supervision, Hitit developed a wide range of airline software which helped it to become one of the fastest growing companies in Europe, the Middle East and Africa in 2006, 2007 and 2008.  Hakan has deep experience and knowledge on many areas of airline IT, including revenue accounting, reservations, departure control and loyalty applications.  Hakan holds a BS degree in Computer Engineering and an MS degree in Cognitive Science.

Patrick has over 18 years experience in aviation / transportation industry in the areas of operations, finance, marketing, integration, implementation, consulting, and sales & account management.

He began his career at United Parcel Service in an operational capacity, before moving to American Airlines, where he initially managed several operational groups, including customer service, ramp services, and cargo operations in the field before taking additional leadership roles at American’s headquarters. There, he was instrumental in helping American and American Eagle forge marketing and alliance partnerships across the globe and drive the implementation of new technologies for the airline.

Transferring to Sabre Holdings before it was spun off from AMR, Patrick continued to gain more experience in IT project management, marketing, strategy, business planning, and technology sales. While at Sabre Holdings, he lead the sales efforts for the Airline Solutions division in EMEA and the Americas.

In his current role, Patrick leads Oracle’s Travel & Transportation Industry Business Unit for the Americas. Oracle’s Travel & Transportation IBU is comprised of several sub-segments, including: airline, airports, hospitality, travel agencies, global distribution systems, cruise lines, car rental, roadway, rail, logistic service providers, sea ports, and providing value-based solutions into the Travel & Transportation market.

Len, co-founder and CEO of LoyaltyPlus Accolades, has full executive and operational management of the company which is based in South Africa.  .

LoyaltyPlus Accolades has been providing CRM, Customer Rewards and Frequent Flier Solutions and Services to the international market for more than a decade.  One component of its offering is the LoyaltyPlus Platform.  This platform gives clients access to loyalty solutions and services on a hosted (ASP) platform.

LoyaltyPlus Accolades currently provides its solutions and services to a range of industries including Air Transport, Retail, Banking, Medical Insurance and Agriculture.

Len, holds a B.Sc degree in Computer Sciences from North West University South Africa, and has extensive experience of CRM, Loyalty and FFP implementations stretching over two decades.

Len is also a director IC Blue Technologies, Customer Benefit Systems and the Mahala Rewards Programme where he is Chief Information Officer.

Brad is a co-founder of LoyaltyMatch Inc. and has piloted LoyaltyMatch.com which provides a peer-to-peer search and discovery loyalty program marketplace for members encompassing 185 loyalty programs from over 60 countries. LoyaltyMatch.com partners include UpTake.com, PlanetEye and Sustainable Travel. Brad has more than 20 years of international experience as a member of senior leadership teams with Hewlett-Packard, Gemini Networks (a member of the Galileo/Apollo Global Travel Distribution System),Open Text and Kraft. During his time with these companies, Brad was involved in building multi-million dollar CRM and eCommerce solutions for use globally.

In 1999 Brad co-founded and was Chief Marketing Officer for IntellectMarket Inc., a collaborative tools software company located in Santa Rosa, CA. IntellectMarket was sold to CollabNet in 2001. With more than 1.8 million users, the CollabNet Platform is the most widely used Global platform for distributed software development. Brad is also an advisor to AideRSS, an early stage blogging software company and was contract CMO to solar energy company Arise Technologies (APV-TSX) which began trading publicly in 2003.

Brad has co-authored loyalty articles for the American Marketing Associations Marketing Management magazine and presented at numerous marketing, CRM and loyalty conferences. He earned his MBA from McMaster University.

Christopher Barnard, President of Points International, co-founded the company in 2000. He has been responsible for corporate strategy, product development, corporate development and financing activities as well as investor relations and has also held various additional interim operating positions including CFO and VP of Product Development and Marketing. In 1998 Christopher also co-founded, Canada ’s first internet business incubator, Exclamation International, from which Points.com was created. Christopher holds a Masters of Business Administrations form the University of Western Ontario.

Points International provides ecommerce solutions to the loyalty points industry world wide. Through a proprietary technical infrastructure, Points offers various white label ecommerce services that allow loyalty programs (frequent flyer miles, hotel points, credit card points, etc.) to increase revenues from their membership bases. Additionally, Points offers the world’s only loyalty management portal (www.points.com) that allows members of multiple programs to track and manage their loyalty currencies like their other financial assets. Through www.points.com, users are able to manage their portfolio of programs, conduct unique redemptions and trade their points/miles with other points.com users through a newly launched peer-to-peer marketplace, the Global Points Exchange (GPX).