Keynotes

Charles Johnston
Director - Reverse Logistics
The Home Depot

Charles Johnston is Director of Repair and Returns at The Home Depot. His responsibilities include Returns, Imports, Exports, and Printing and Mailing Distribution. Prior to joining Mr. Johnston was Director of Reverse Logistics at WalMart Stores, Inc.

Thomas Maher
Vice President for Global Service
Dell, Inc.

Tom Maher joined Dell in 1997 and is the Vice President for Global Service Parts. Mr. Maher is responsible for service parts life cycle support in over 100 countries.

Mr. Maher's global service parts responsibilities include: planning, procurement, distribution, returns, repair, inventory management, supplier management and parts disposal. Mr. Maher's organization supports all Dell hardware service offerings for each of Dell's Business Units and Lines of Business. The Global Service Parts organization provides support ranging from mail in Depot Repair to 2hr response and Onsite Parts Management.

Larry Christopher
Program Manager Distribution
TaylorMade

Larry Christopher is the reverse logistics program manager for TaylorMade Adidas Golf.  He has held various logistics positions in inventory management, planning and distribution center operations management.  Christopher has devoted much of his time to furthering a number of  supply chain continuous improvement and process improvement initiatives. Christopher has APICS CSCP certification and sits on the Board of Directors of the APICS Industrial Crescent Chapter in Greenville, SC.  He also hold a Green Enterprise Development Certificate from Perdue University’s Technical Assistance Program for green and sustainable supply chains.

Steve Freemerman
Global Logistics Manager
GoPro

Peter Diamandis,
Chairman and CEO of the XPRIZE Foundation

How to Create a Culture of Innovation within your Company

Based on the success of the Ansari XPRIZE (which stimulated the creation of the billion-dollar private spaceflight industry) and more recently the launch of the $30M Google Lunar XPRIZE, Diamandis discusses how to incentivize innovative thinking and breakthroughs. He explains how traditional thinking, risk-aversion, and incrementalism causes the demise of companies unable to cope with the changes brought by disruptive innovation. Diamandis discusses how the rapid growth of key exponential technologies (nano, info, bio) is empowering individuals and companies to do what only governments were able to achieve in past decades. With the message of “evolve or die,” Diamandis is a dynamic, inspirational speaker who provides real value to his audience by showing them how to drive breakthrough thinking focused on achieving clear, measurable, and objective results.

Jack Allen, Senior Director,
Global Logistics, Supply Chain Operations, Cisco

The Connected Supply Chain

Next generation supply chains will be connected and encompass all the factories, warehouses, DCs, logistics partners, suppliers and design partners in one integrated system. In this keynote, Cisco’s Jack Allen will share his insights on the maturity curve companies follow as they connect nodes and systems across their supply chain. He will also examine the role IoT plays in achieving optimal energy efficiency across supply chain resources and the impact disruptive technologies is having on supply chain strategy.

George W. Prest, CEO, MHI | Scott Sopher, Principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP

Preview of MHI 2016 Annual Industry Report

This is your opportunity to be the first to have access to this new report on the supply chain realities and eight technologies that are transforming supply chains. Scott Sopher, the principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP's Supply Chain practice will join George W. Prest, CEO of MHI in presenting the findings and moderating a panel of manufacturing and supply chain leaders on the report's findings.

Kevin O’Leary,
Entrepreneur, Investor & Shark Tank's Mr. Wonderful

Lessons From a Dragon

During this keynote, Kevin O'Leary, one of North America's most successful entrepreneurs, reveals the secrets that made him rich and shares his personal advice. O'Leary will take you on a behind the scenes look at his two hit shows, Dragons' Den & Shark Tank. O’Leary will share entertaining and insightful outtakes from his TV shows and provide a current economic overview and how it relates to the manufacturing and supply chain industry. He will share his insights into how the industry is performing, where the innovation is coming from, how to grow your business and more.