Shah Karim, Chief Executive Officer, SafeRock
Read Shah’s full bio on our About Our CEO page.
Craig Levra, Chief Operating Officer, Goodwill Southern California
Craig currently serves as COO at Goodwill Southern California. Formerly, he was Chairman/CEO of Sport Chalet, Inc. The company operated 55 full-service stores in addition to a substantial online presence generating over $400 million in annual revenue. The company was twice named one of America’s 200 Best Small Companies by Forbes.
Brian Devine, Chairman Emeritus at Petco
Brian is a renowned leader in retail. He is Chairman Emeritus at PETCO Holdings, Inc. Earlier, he served as SVP of Stores at Toys R Us, and on the Boards of Retail Industry Leaders Association and National Retail Federation.
Imran Ahmed, Managing Director, Amantea Investments Limited
Imran oversees SafeRock’s international activity in Middle East and Asia. Based in Dubai, he began his working career in the UAE in 1991, having spent seven years as an institutional buy-side analyst for a high profile sovereign family office in Abu Dhabi. He began his working career in the UAE in 1991 and has held key positions in institutional sales and marketing roles in a number of international firms from Dubai over the past fifteen years including Union Bancaire Privee, Jefferies & Banque SYZ. Currently he is an advisor to GII, a corporate finance and advisory boutique and he sits on the advisory board of OIAF a Hong Kong based private equity fund focused on investing in late stage/early growth Asian companies with disruptive technology.
Cristi Stiers, Executive Advisor, SafeRock
Cristi Stiers is a Strategic Executive Advisor at Saferock and was previously President and CEO of ANGUS, Inc., formerly a DOW subsidiary (NYSE: DOW), now co-owned by private equity firms Ardian Partners ($110B AUM) and Golden Gate Capital ($14B AUM). She has worked in commodity chemicals, running the global Chlor-alkali business ($1.3B) for Dow Chemical and in specialty chemicals running the Home Care, I & I, and Personal Care Solutions business ($1.4B) for Dow. She also has experience in the fine chemicals and custom manufacturing space for the pharmaceutical industry while working for FMC Lithium now Livent. Cristi advises private equity, investment firms, and chemicals companies in areas including M&A, the chemicals industry, business turnarounds, global operations, purchasing, supply chain, innovation, customer relationships and has spent 25 years in the chemical industry leading global businesses.
Martin Anduschus, Vice President at Arvato systems Bertelsmann
Martin is the Vice President of Arvato systems, a German based company that provides IT solutions for the Retail, Manufacturing, and Media sectors, among others. He is an expert on e-commerce, omnichannel, big data and digitalization, and has consulted on these strategies for retail companies internationally for over 20 years. He is experienced in building e-commerce systems from inception to launch and has successfully launched a start-up whose revenue exceeded Euro 10 Million in 3 years. A published author and leader overseeing international sales and consulting teams, Martin is recognized as a strategic advisor and innovator in the retail industry.
Dr. Richard Federowski, Partner at Roland Berger
Dr. Richard Federowski is a specialist for the retail sector especially fashion, luxury and lifestyle business. He has completed Numerous projects in the retail industry including strategic, operational and financial restructuring, growth and distribution strategy, due diligence/market and competitive analysis, M&A and PMI. Richard’s career started in the banking industry, before he moved to Roland Berger, where he spent eight years in the restructuring team conducting multiple projects in retail and fashion. He continued his professional life at a DIY-retailer as Head of In-house Consulting/M&A and afterwards at a multi-brand fashion retailer in the position of Head of Executive Affairs & Strategic Projects, and as Head of Corporate Strategy. He holds a Master and PHD in economics from the Handelshochschule Leipzig.
Kathie Barclay, Founder at Barclay Marketing Solutions
Kathie Barclay is the founder of Barclay Marketing Solutions, specializing in direct-to-consumer marketing and loyalty programs. Earlier, she launched one of the country’s first major loyalty marketing programs for retailer BevMo!, growing ClubBev! from zero to 500,000 members in four years. After launching marketing and merchandising programs for several retailers, Kathie was the Senior Director of Marketing for Windsor Vineyards. She later led the direct marketing practice for Benson Marketing Group, where she created campaigns that drove direct-to-consumer sales for clients, resulting in annual revenue increases of 20%+. Kathie is also a highly rated instructor for the Napa-based WISE Academy.
Richard E. Last, Founding Partner at Axcelora
Richard is one of the co-founders of Axcelora, connecting service providers with retailers. He retired from the University of North Texas in 2016 where he led the Digital Retailing degree program, and was Senior Director of their research center for Global Digital Retailing. Mr. Last has over 20 years of experience in Digital Retailing. Under his leadership, JCPenney began selling merchandise via the Web in Oct.1994, the first Department Store online, and by 2005, the first $Billion Apparel and Home Furnishings website. He also led JCP’s international expansion of its catalog business in the 90’s. From 2007-11, Mr. Last served as Chairman of Shop.org, He currently serves on the Editorial Boards of Total Retail and of Retail Touchpoints. He served on the National Retail Federation Board of Directors from 2004-08.
Ashley Whicher, Retail Expert
Ashley had an almost 37 year career in the Canadian retail industry working at the two largest department stores in the country. He held progressively more senior roles, notably as Group Vice President of Merchandising and Vice President of Marketing at both companies. Additionally, he ran the overseas buying operation leading the sourcing, planning and logistics functions for all businesses in the company. As a result of these positions, Ashley is uniquely qualified in the apparel, home and hardlines businesses. Ashley led the development of a data driven, analytic tool to better guide the marketing investment decisions at Canada’s leading department store. Ashley retired in the fall of 2015.
Rich Hollander, Managing Partner and Founder of Axcelora
Rich is the Managing Partner and Founder of Axcelora. Axcelora introduces B2B companies to retail and restaurant decision makers through a network of veteran retail and restaurant executives. Before forming Axcelora Rich was President of Buxton’s retail practice growing the division nearly 10-fold in his tenure there. For the first 25 years of his working career Rich was with Radio Shack/Tandy Corporation. Rising through the ranks of the company Rich became Vice President and General Manager of Incredible Universe. Envisioned by John Roach and Rich, the concept became the first retail concept to incorporate retail and entertainment in the same venue. Rich led the concept from inception to the first three years of operations leaving with a run rate approaching $1 billion dollars after just three years.
