Ms. Geldard joined Cogeco Cable Canada in May 2014 to help build the strategic sourcing team for Cogeco Cable Canada and to lead major procurement driven initiatives for Cogeco Cable Inc. Prior to joining Cogeco, she occupied various management positions within the supply chain at Bombardier Aerospace from 1996 to 2010. From 2010 to 2014, Ms. Geldard was Senior Director, Strategic Sourcing and Administrative shared services for Desjardins Group throughout Canada. She built the strategic sourcing department for the business sectors and was in charge of leading the internal administrative shared services through successful optimisation initiatives.

Ms. Geldard holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Université de Québec à Montréal (Montréal) as well as of Executive MBA from Paris Dauphine (Paris, France). She has a Bachelor of Arts (BA) from McGill University (Montreal) as well as a Certificate in Aeronautical Engineering from École Polytechnique (Montréal).

Warren Jestin is Scotiabank’s Chief Economist and has been with the Bank since 1979.  Warren is a popular public speaker on Canadian and International economic issues, meeting with clients and experts from around the globe to keep pace with the latest economic, political and financial market developments. 

Warren is on Advisory Boards for the Sobey School of Business at St. Mary’s University, and the University of Guelph where he is the Economist in Residence at the College of Management & Economics. Warren also serves on several other advisory boards including The Vineland Research and Innovation Centre, the Canadian Foundation for Economic Education and the Markham Stouffville Hospital, where he is past Chair.

He has also been a member of the C.D. Howe Institute’s Monetary Policy Council and has been involved with policy committees of the Canadian and Ontario Chambers of Commerce and the Toronto Board of Trade.

Before joining Scotiabank, Warren earned a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, worked at the Bank of Canada and taught at several universities.

Carrie Uhl was named Vice President of Procurement for the Americas in July 2010.  In this position, Uhl is responsible for coordinating the purchasing function across Magna International’s North and South American operations and ensuring consistent and strategic approaches to supplier selection, commodity management, and supplier risk evaluation.

Uhl joined Magna in 2005 as Commodity Manager for Magna Exteriors and Interiors, where she set strategy and negotiated agreements for plastic resin, the operating group’s largest purchase category.  She has progressed through positions of increasing responsibility within the purchasing function, including Global Commodity Manager for resin and plastic molding for Magna International and then also Director of Purchasing for Magna Composites.

Prior to joining Magna, Uhl held purchasing positions at both Lear Corporation and Guardian Industries.

Uhl earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Human and Organizational Development from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.  She has also achieved the Senior Professional in Supply Management (SPSM) certification, and serves on several industry purchasing councils.

Brad Chittick is the Associate Vice President of Supply Chain Facilities & Maintenance for Canadian Tire Corporation’s (CTC) Retail company and is responsible for the maintenance, engineering, environmental, and non-merchandise procurement activities for CTC’s Supply Chain facilities across Canada. Brad has been with Canadian Tire for over 22 years. He has held various engineering, operational and project management positions throughout his career with CTC. Brad has lead the operation of a 1.4 million square foot distribution centre in Brampton, Ontario and prior to his current position, lead a project team that designed, built and successfully implemented a 1.5 million square foot DC in the Greater Montreal area. The Montreal DC is CTC’s largest distribution centre.

Previously to joining Canadian Tire, Brad spent 14 years in the automotive manufacturing sector with General Motors and General Tire.

Brad holds a Bachelor of Engineering Science degree from the University of Western Ontario and is a registered Professional Engineer in Ontario. Brad holds memberships in the Material Handling Management Society, Plant Engineering & Maintenance Association of Canada, Warehouse Education & Research Council (WERC) and Partners in Project Green (PPG).

He currently sits on PPG’s Executive Committee and is the Chairman of the Energy Performance Committee.

Senior Director, Strategic  & IT Sourcing with the National Bank of Canada based out of Montreal.  Over 15 years of experience in the telecommunications and Financial industries. Expertise include building corporate procurement plans, negotiating and executing complex deals and teaching the principles surrounding key levers amongst Indirect/direct categories. Undergraduate degree in Economics and a Master's in Business Administration from Concordia University's John Molson School of Business.  Currently on the Board of Directors for the Sun Youth Organization a not for profit organization.

Manoj Aggarwal is the Director of Procurement with over 23 years of experience on mega greenfield and brownfield carbon and sulphur capture facilities, oil and gas processing facilities, cross-country pipelines, oil refineries, petrochemical complexes and chemical port terminals. Mr. Aggarwal’s experience includes liaison with clients and vendors, management of procurement and contracts for multiple offices, and provide strategic direction for Global Procurement Alliance Suppliers. He has led the procurement work stream for integration of procurement policies, procedures, systems, organization and spend for a major acquisition.

His responsibilities have included supporting operations of the business unit, management of project procurement functions (purchasing,subcontracts, expediting, inspection and logistics), development of project-specific procedures, ensuring compliance to corporate policies,guidelines and procedures and management of prime contracts. Manoj’s experience also covers preparing cost estimation and cash flows,conducting financial analyses, sensitivity analyses and market surveys, budget control, cost trending and conducting cost audits.

Jill Button is the Director of Supply Chain and Strategic Sourcing at Shaw Communications. With over twenty five years of business and leadership experience, Jill has thorough, hands on knowledge of all aspects of transformational, strategic sourcing, supply chain, logistics & operations management spanning all direct and indirect procurement categories.   Her background has been focused on large enterprise, high growth companies and she is considered a subject matter expert in IT, Professional & Consulting Services, Outsourcing and Offshoring. 

Mathew Moore serves as the Head of Corporate Sourcing, Procurement & Payable for BlackBerry Limited (NASDAQ: BBRY; TSX: BB) – a world leader in mobile communications with approximately $4 billion in revenue and approximately 7,000 employees worldwide.  In his role, Mathew has oversight for managing procurement and third-party relationships for the organization across all spend categories globally.  

In this role since 2009, Mathew has created a new Procurement organization elevating capabilities and influence across BlackBerry. As part of the Company’s turnaround, he has built a global organization that is more closely aligned with business units and finance, deeply embedded in the business and is driving sustainable value, more predictive planning and transformation objectives for the Company.

Prior to joining BlackBerry, Mathew worked for KPMG LLP as a Manager in the CFO Transformation consulting practice and is also a Chartered Professional Accountant.  In this role, he led finance and operational improvement programs for private and public sector entities to increase efficiency, reduce costs and build organizational value.

Most recently, Mathew received the Transformation Award, as well as the 2013 Future Procurement Leader Award by Procurement Leaders in London UK, recognized for his leadership and innovative thinking in the procurement profession.  He holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Economics and Finance from the University of Guelph.

I started my procurement career 15 years ago as a buyer when I realized how much potential this field has.   Since then, I’ve been in various procurement roles with gradually increasing responsibilities.  The entire time I’ve spent as a procurement professional I encountered challenges regarding engaging stakeholders who are not bought into the centralized procurement concept.  Over the years I’ve developed the ability to have a readily available value proposition that speaks to the business group I’m about to engage and I’ve also learned to quickly identify the least and the most resistant business groups so I can tailor the proposition accordingly.  The corporate message is usually clear: the more spend we bring under procurement’s control, the more the corporation benefits.  However, as sourcing professionals, we need to be able to translate that to department and individual level benefits.  I’ve worked for organizations of all sizes in various industries and I can say with confidence that there is a way to prove to everyone that we add value.  It is a multi-dimensional approach and it requires a lot of up-front efforts but it works.  The latest testament to that is my success at Indigo in getting the spend under control.

Supporting my solid business and procurement base knowledge (a Bachelor’s Degree from Hungary and a CSCMP (Certified Supply Chain Management Professional) designation through the Purchasing Management Association of Canada) I continuously update my knowledge on industry, sourcing category and stakeholder engagement best practices through seminars and workshops.  I also work with the PMAC on tweaking the accreditation program so candidates can acquire the most up-to-date education program and to arm them with a robust sourcing/procurement toolkit.

Cathy Kutch is the Director of Supplier Relations and Diversity at the Kellogg Company. 

Cathy joined the Kellogg Company in August 1987.  Her experiences at the Kellogg Company have been focused on suppliers over the last 25 years.  She is responsible for the Supplier Diversity process at the Kellogg Company.  She also has worked with the leadership team of the procurement department to institute a Supplier Relationship Management Process.  Over the last 12 years this process has provided supplier performance, strategy discussions and executive connection for strategic Kellogg suppliers. 

Cathy graduated from the King’s College in New York with a B.S. in history.  She lives with her husband, Edward, in Richland Michigan.

Jeff van Geel, sourcing manager, joined 3M Canada in 2005. He began his 3M career as a print consultant as part of a six sigma black belt project. He became sourcing manager in 2006 and is responsible for overseeing procurement for the entire 3M Canada supply chain.  He has taken on increased roles adding Accounts Payable and Package Engineering in recent years.  Prior to 3M, van Geel worked for 15 years in IT for Canada Trust.

Van Geel graduated with a master of science degree, majoring in information technology, from the University of Liverpool, United Kingdom.  He lives with his wife, Sylvie in London, Ontario and enjoys mountain biking, cooking and volunteering.

Claire Caloren started as Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Acquisitions Branch, on June 23, 2014. She is working with the Assistant Deputy Minister in managing a team of over 2,000 employees and delivering an average of more than $12B in acquisitions for 140 government departments and agencies.

Ms. Caloren has over 20 years of experience in the Public Service, both at Headquarters and in a region. She has been at PWGSC since 2011, most recently as Associate ADM of Accounting, Banking and Compensation where she was responsible for leading public service pay and pension transformation. Prior to that, she held the position of Director General, Commercial Acquisitions and Supply Management in the Acquisitions Branch where she was responsible for leading the planning and delivery of procurement services for a wide range of goods and services on behalf of government departments.

Along with the Assistant Deputy Minister and the Acquisitions Branch team, Ms. Caloren will lead projects and initiatives to support PWGSC's mission to deliver high-quality services and programs that meet the needs of federal organizations while ensuring sound stewardship on behalf of Canadians. These projects focus on the improvement and transformation of the procurement function to better support PWGSC's mission.  She is currently leading the Smart Procurement Initiative, an IT-enabled business transformation.  This initiative involves a review of business processes, including standardizing and streamlining, applying Lean principles and applying the Smart procurement approach (early engagement, effective governance, independent advice and benefits for Canadian) in the procurement functions. This business transformation will be enabled with the acquisition of an e Procurement solution in order to realize efficiencies, improve client service, reduce cost and process burdens for clients and suppliers and to effectively manage and provide sound stewardship of the $12B annual Government of Canada contract spend, to obtain best value for Canadians.

An experienced financial and strategic business partner who is skilled at providing financial analysis and advice to business partners, facilitating their efforts to deliver on budgets and long term strategic plans.  A Finance Leader with experience in managing budgeting and strategic planning processes, improving processes to make them more efficient,  (shorten reporting cycles), and successfully implementing changes in technology (ERP system implementations).  A great manager who challenges and supports staff to achieve results individually and for the organization and who holds people accountable for their actions.

A driven individual who is flexible to take on any challenge and is open to opportunities anywhere in the business wher I can add value (currently in Procurement), I thrive on helping a business user team accomplish their goal by working and thinking strategically about the goal and developing a plan to achieve milestones. 

Jean Tsach is Sourcing Head for Novartis Pharmaceuticals in Canada since December 2013.  In this role, Jean is leading the Canadian Sourcing Organization to maximize Procurement benefits through demand management, process improvements, and cost reduction initiatives.

Jean has over 15 years of sourcing experience in various industries and geographies around the world, with a strong experience in Marketing services. He has rolled out many global, regional and local projects with the complexities of a multicultural environment in stakeholder and supplier landscapes.

He joined Novartis in 2010, as Sandoz Head Indirect Purchasing for the Central Eastern Europe (CEE) region. Prior to joining Novartis, Jean spent over 5 years at Nokia, where he held several senior procurement positions in South East Asia, France, Italy, and Spain. Prior to his tenure at Nokia, Jean worked at Bacardi-Martini, Societé Générale, and Brasseries Kronenbourg in France.

Jean holds a Master’s degree in Economics, from the University of Grenoble, and a Post-graduate degree in International Business, specializing in International Trade from the University of Valenciennes in France.

Peter Carr is President and General Manager of Flextrack Inc.

Mr. Carr has 10+ years of experience in the services and technology sectors and has been with Flextrack since 2006.  Mr. Carr has overall responsibility for Flextrack’s operations (approx. $1B in annual spend under management), service offerings and strategy. Peter has been utilized as a trusted consultant, SME, and thought leader by many of North America’s largest consumers of contractors/contingent workforces. He is currently on HR.com’s board as a subject matter expert on contract/contingent workforce and has been engaged by governing bodies like The Project Management Institute as a SME in the contingent labour vertical.

Below is a sample of significant Contingent Workforce Programs that have engaged Mr. Carr on design and/or where he has filled the Program Director role:

TELUS, Sun Life Financial, TD Canada Trust, Rogers, Deloitte, Loblaw, Allstream, CIBC, Province of Nova Scotia

Peter also devotes a significant portion of his time to charity, holding a position on the board of one of the first inner city palliative care residences devoted to the marginalized.  In addition to being certified as a P.M.P. and ITIL V3 Expert, Mr. Carr currently instructs at York University on the topics of Strategic/Tactical Management and Organizational Behaviour.

During her career Ann has held a number of management positions, including Vice President, Strategic Sourcing and Member Services for a National Group Purchasing Organization.  This role had a portfolio of contracts valued over $500 M and a staff of seventeen responsible for all aspects of sourcing and contracting; with a mission to deliver value to Healthcare organizations in Canada.

Currently as Executive Director of Strategic Sourcing at FacilicorpNB, a shared services organization that manages and delivers selected non-clinical services for the New Brunswick health system, Ann is responsible for building and managing a strategic sourcing division from the ground up.  Ann has had a direct impact on achieving $21 M a year in savings for the province’s health system over the past five years as well as developed and implemented a standard approach to strategic sourcing for the entire province.

Ann is currently a Board member of Healthcare Supply Chain Network, a national not for profit organization dedicated to suppliers and providers within Healthcare Supply Chain.  She has held roles as a member of the Board of Directors of the Fundy Lacrosse Association in Saint John, NB. Ann held the position of Registration Co-ordinator for the 2013 CIBC Run for the Cure.  Ann’s family was one of the first billet families for the Saint John Sea Dogs of the Canadian Hockey League – over the course of five years the family billeted two young players from Czech Republic and continue to have a strong relationship with these young men.

Monica Feregrino is the Senior Director, Purchasing and Supplier Development at Westport. Monica selects and maintains constant contact with Westport’s vendors to achieve the highest quality, most competitive pricing performance for the company and its customers. Her experience in manufacturing and operations have given her a comprehensive understanding of outside sourcing, cost drivers and their impact.

Prior to joining Westport, Monica held the  position of Chief,  manufacturing Engineer at Delphi. In that role she had operation responsibility for production, manufacturing engineering, process development, cost estimating for all facilities and design centers within Fuel Handling.

Monica is a graduate of Instituto Tecnologico de Chihuahua, with a Bachelor of Industrial Engineering and is a registered Professional Engineer in British Columbia. She also holds a Master of Engineering, Manufacturing from the University of Michigan.

Michael G. Haynes provides a model and the actions necessary to establish early procurement involvement for Siemens in his operational role to implement a green field centralized procurement organization in a project business environment that did not have an established professional procurement organization.  This presentation focuses on the performance of the Company’s U.S. West Region Procurement Team in achieving Early Procurement Involvement in Project Business, integration, and the lessons learned.  This model has been accepted as a best practice and has been implemented in Canada.  This abstract will show how a Regional Procurement Team increased the percentage of Cost Reduction Dollars to Total Direct Project Spend from 5% to 17% over a four year period (2006 to 2009).

Carman Ciciretto, is IBM Canada's Procurement Executive and a Leader within IBM's Global Procurement Organization. Carman, has responsibility for strategic sourcing, procurement operations and delivery of Global Procurement Services in support of Customer outsourcing. Carman's organization includes 80 Procurement professionals who manage $1 Billion in indirect spend across 14 categories for IBM Canada.

Carman has over 25 years of experience in the IT industry focused on transformational leadership roles in IBM’s Supply Chain. Carman, has worked to lead IBM's Procurement organization and Customer's Procurement practices from being a tactical function to a group of highly skilled Procurement professionals who understand the impact of savings, compliance, superior service/products and an integrated model driving effectiveness and efficiency not only to the bottom line of the business but in growing revenue at the top line.

Prior to supply chain, Carman led projects for IBM’s Technology Group in Canada where he was responsible for demand creation, development sizing, application management and design engineering teams who implement prioritization of business process in Information Systems delivery.

Julia Fournier has worked in staffing, professional services and vendor management technology for more than 20 years. When vendor management technology was being developed for the purposes of automating master vendor models, Julia was a key player in helping vendor management companies develop those solutions.
 
Julia ran some of the largest contingent workforce programs in North America for several years before moving into vendor management technology solutions. In 2005, she brought both of those experiences together to create HCMWorks; now one of the largest neutral providers of contingent management services in North America.
 
HCMWorks, a tier one diversity supplier, has helped its customers realize more than 120M in savings within the last 8 years - currently managing more than 8B in transactional spend across multiple categories.
 
Julia is Co-chair of Angels in Action (Ottawa) which raises funds for Ovarian cancer research. She is the mother of twin boys, and lives in Ottawa.

Shawn Fitzgerald is the Director of Corporate Procurement with The Co-operators Group Ltd, one of the largest multiline insurance and financial service organizations in Canada.

Since his arrival at The Co-operators, his responsibilities have included the creation of the Centralized Corporate Procurement department at The Co-operators Group of Companies, including the sourcing and selection of highly skilled procurement professionals, and the creation and implementation of all procurement related policies and procedures.  Shawn has worked to develop, establish and implement standardized procurement best practices and has centralized the Procurement function between 8 previously decentralized insurance companies including, but not limited to, expense reduction strategies, contract management, vendor selection, sourcing, negotiation, vendor relationship management and the due diligence process.  The results for The Co-operators have been very significant cost savings, a streamlined procurement and contract review process, increased risk mitigation, and an ever growing awareness of the value that high level procurement talent can provide to the organizations bottom line.  Shawn is also Chairman of the Sustainable Purchasing Committee at The Co-operators Group of Companies and is working to increase environmental responsibility in the vendor community.

Previous to The Co-operators, over the past decade Shawn was the Director of Global Indirect Procurement and Facilities at Spin Master Toys and also held the role of Senior Manager of Purchasing and Facilities at Rexall Pharmacies / Katz Group Canada.  Both of which were the most senior Procurement roles in those two organizations.

Shawn brings to Procurecon over 15 years of high level procurement and strategic sourcing experience across the Manufacturing, Retail, Distribution, and Financial Services sectors.

Michael Power has been the editor of PurchasingB2B for the past four-and-a-half years, and was also previously editor of MM&D magazine. He worked as an editor and writer at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto and has written for newspapers and magazines in Ontario and Nova Scotia, including The Richmond Hill Liberal, The Markham Economist and Sun and the The Halifax Daily News. He worked as an English teacher in Japan for five years, and holds a master's degree from the University of Leeds in the UK.

Pallabee joined Mosaic Sales Solutions in February 2008 to build the Procurement department for Mosaic Canada; developing purchasing policies, vendor management practices and reducing cost for the organization. Pallabee lead the development and implementation of procurement strategy and new procure to pay solutions at Mosaic in both Canada and the USA. She has grown procurement services to play an integral role within the North American Finance department supporting marketing and agency services across the Acosta Mosaic Group agencies; with team members located in Toronto, Mississauga, Chicago, Connecticut and Dallas.

Prior to joining Mosaic, Pallabee managed the purchasing and supply chain operations for a growing entrepreneurial organisation, I Love Rewards, in Toronto from 2006-2008. She managed $1.2M in inventory from sourcing to fulfillment, directly impacting cost reduction throughout the supply chain process. In addition, Pallabee has held roles within the marketing functions at both UNESCO and Hilti in Paris (France) from 2001-2005. At UNESCO, Pallabee built the marketing strategy for the International Hydrological Program’s fresh water project, facilitating the relationship development between organisations for U.N. initiatives. At Hilti, Pallabee developed the packaging and merchandising concepts for a strategic retail initiative throughout France, managing the concept development to sourcing process.

Pallabee Bera holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration (HBA) from the Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario (Canada). In addition, she holds an International Business and Economics Studies Certificate from the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland) and an Honours Bachelor of Arts in French Language & Literature from the University of Western Ontario.

Lis has twenty nine years of experience in supply chain management. She has done substantive work in procurement, contract and materials management for a plastic injection molder, a global paint and coatings company, a steel storage tank manufacturer, a large construction organization and most recently an equipment dealer. Lis’ focus has been on global buying initiatives with the main objective of reducing costs and stream lining procurement initiatives across multiple facilities. Additionally, she has successfully implemented lean manufacturing techniques, inventory management systems to improve cash flow, supply chain policies and procedures and ERP systems. Currently Lis holds the position of Director, Procurement & Supplier Management at Finning (Canada). In this position, Lis has played an integral part in developing short and long term strategies at a corporate level.

Stefane Belleau is Associate Vice President, Procurement and Real estate management for Laurentian Bank of Canada and holds the SCMP designation and is an MBA from HEC.  His responsibilities include contract and procurement activities for the bank’s group of companies, including all IT contract and licensing, but also the real-estate and lease management, branch network and office construction and maintenance.

His career includes procurement and supply chain and operations responsibilities, including contract, capital budgets, fleet and real-estate management, and achievements in the telecommunication, financial and manufacturing sectors. He has held management positions for the last 17 years, at Teleglobe, Cogeco Cable, Intact and Laurentian Bank.

He has occupied several positions as a volunteer within PMAC, at district and national.

Kyle Brown is the Director of the Supply Chain Management “SCM” team at ATB Financial, and is responsible for all non-IT centric procurements.  If you are not familiar with ATB Financial, it is Alberta’s largest financial institution, a $38 Billion organization, and operates solely within Alberta. This year, Kyle has been focusing efforts to enhancing vendor collaboration opportunities, minimizing rogue spend, and really understanding internal business partners to align the SCM service offering.

Ryan Mark Fernandes is the Supply Chain Director at Sun Rich Fresh Foods.  His responsibilities encompass the management of logistics and procurement for all 5 sites servicing the North American market, in addition, to leading the charge on sourcing new product lines or business ventures for future growth.  Ryan was brought into the organization to formalize and raise the level of procurement to make it a strategic, centralized division of the organization.  Focus has been spend on building category plans for the different raw material spends with a vision to better incorporate risk mitigation strategies to avoid the swings that occur in the Global Agricultural Market. 

In addition, the procurement team has begun the move from transactional vendor relationships to strategic partnerships to find savings from innovation and efficiencies that will impact the bottom line over multiple years.  Looking forward, Sun Rich looks for the procurement team to further incorporate non-supply chain spend and to increase the level of engagement on new product ideation and implementation.

Prior to Sun Rich, Ryan held various leadership positions at Maple Leaf Foods and Anheuser-Busch Inbev Canada.

Jeff Russell is currently the Director of Procurement for Crane Supply – a Canadian national wholesaler of pipes, valves and fittings. He has 20 years’ experience in Procurement/Supply Chain Management, having previously worked with such companies as Honeywell ES&S (Aerospace), Pratt & Whitney Canada, ABC Group of Companies (Tier 1 Automotive) and NPB-Melville Software (now Tyco Healthcare). In his current role, he is directly responsible for managing a spend of $145M, all global sourcing initiatives, global ocean freight and Canada Customs. He currently resides in Vaughan with his wife Naomi and their two children, enjoys hockey in the winter, golf in the summer and the when the opportunity strikes itself, the martial art judo.

Eugene Fernandez is Director Strategic Sourcing at Public Mobile Inc. He has held General Management positions and has over 30 years experience in Supply Chain and Procurement Transformation, in US, Canada, India and Middle East. His best practices experience includes the top 25 global supply chain organizations like IBM and Dell.

He has proven record in five companies of increasing Net Profit 25% in six months with no investment, through Supply Chain transformation. He drives over 15% cost reductions through Procurement Strategy formulation aligned to Business Units, Procurement Transformation, Change Management, Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Collaboration, accelerated Staff Development, and enhanced Customer Satisfaction.

Eugene has extensive Strategic Sourcing experience in numerous international organizations in about 100 diversified direct and indirect categories like Oil Services Parts, Motors, IT HW & SW, Professional Services, Network Backhaul, Facilities, Construction, Logistics, Insurance, Legal, Interest, Taxes/Customs Duty, and SR&ED.

Through his out of the “box thinking” and “seeing the invisible to do the impossible”, Eugene brings value to organizations by sales growth, using vendor innovations; mitigating risks and by continuous improvement; in addition to annual spend savings.

Eugene mentors heavily and wishes in the coming year to share his over 1001 best practices by developing a website for all procurement professional globally to share best practices in Supply Chain, Transformation and Category strategies for the coming generation.

Sean Smith has dual roles at Agropur, a $6B Canadian Dairy Cooperative. He is the Category Director – Dairy Ingredients for Agropur as well as the Director, Supply Chain for Agropur Ingredients, an ingredients manufacturing business unit within Agropur. He is responsible for all strategic sourcing, contracting, development and supplier management for all Dairy Ingredients across Agropur. Sean also leads the supply chain for Agropur Ingredients, having responsibility for purchasing, production planning, inventory management, warehouse operations and logistics. Sean is a member of the Agropur Strategic Sourcing & Development Managing Board, as well as a member of Agropur Ingredients Management Committee and sits on the ERP Council for an implementation of Oracle, as a Business Process Owner for Procurement modules.  As well, Sean is the subject matter expert and lead for implementations of best of breed technology solutions in Contract Management and eRFX / eAuction as well as Market Intelligence.  Prior to joining Agropur, Sean was a Supply Chain Manager with Adventist Health System, responsible for the Contracting and Sourcing modules of a PeopleSoft implementation. From 2010 to 2012, Sean was a Strategic Sourcing Manager for Facilities at Citigroup. Previous to Citigroup Sean was a Supply Chain Manager in the United States Army. Sean has a Bachelor’s in Finance, Cum Laude, from University of Maryland and an MBA with a Supply Chain Management specialization from the University of South Florida. He is currently working on a Master’s in Predictive Analytics from Northwestern University.

With over 20 years experience in purchasing and the hospitality industry, Priscilla brings to Best Western Supply international purchasing experience. She joined Best Western in 1998, and leads the Canadian team in supporting BWI Members in their purchasing needs. She is responsible for the direction and implementation of national purchasing and supply initiatives for the independently owned and operated Canadian Best Western hotels. Priscilla negotiates contracts on behalf of the Members to ensure best pricing for the right product and service, and has established programs to make purchasing easier, creating Design room packages, Design washroom packages, Fitness packages and Food and Beverage packages. She is a Member of PMAC (Purchasing Managers Association of Canada) and is currently pursuing her CPP. Priscilla completed her MHS (master Hotel Supplier) in 2006. She also represents Best Western International as a proud Member of NEWH (The Hospitality Industry Network), where she was one of the founding members in Canada and the first Canadian President in 2004/5.  Priscilla was appointed to the International Board of Directors for NEWH and held the position of Vice President Finance in 2006 and Vice President International Relations in 2007/8. Priscilla is a Member of the Children’s Aid Society of Halton and President and an Advocate of the Halton Foster Parent Association since 2005.

Prior to joining Best Western International Priscilla was the Purchasing Manager for a large Hotel chain in Southern Africa and was responsible for the Procurement for their 5 star Indian Ocean Resort Hotels.

Austin Noronha is a strategic procurement executive with extensive, progressive supply chain experience and demonstrated expertise in reducing operating costs via strategic procurement initiatives.

Austin acquired his CPP (Certified Professional Purchaser) from the Purchasing Management Association of Canada (PMAC) in 2000, a CRM (Canadian Risk Management) designation via the Global Risk Management Institute (GRMI) in early 2003 and a CPM (Certified Purchasing Manager) through the Institute of Supply Management (ISM) later on in 2003.

Austin began his purchasing career in 1985 with IBM Canada. In 1994 he left IBM to develop a career in consulting and has since, alternated between employment and consulting engagements with industry leaders like MCI, Brookfield LePage Johnson Controls (BLJC), Foresters (IOF), Sun Life, RIM, CIBC, Plexxus and now McMaster University.

Marc-Andre Labelle is Director, Procurement & IT at Ubisoft Entertainment in Canada, overseeing the Procurement, Real Estate Management and Business Software Development departments totaling 100 employees.

Under his management, Ubisoft Montreal Procurement Department coverage rate significantly increased to reach the 88% mark while he developed this department from 3 employees in 2004 to 20 employees now negotiating international contracts for the group.

Prior to working at Ubisoft, Marc started a company specialized in procurement outsourcing for SMEs.

He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration, a Master’s Degree in Project Management and is currently completing an Executive MBA at the ESG UQAM.

Jack Bradley, B.A, CITT, P.MM is the Director of Logistics and Supply Chain for Strongco Corporation.  Strongco is a major multiline mobile equipment dealer with over 30 branch operations across Canada and in the United States. Strongco sells, rents and services equipment used in sectors such as construction, infrastructure, mining, oil and municipalities, waste management and forestry. Strongco (www.strongco.com) represents leading manufacturers with globally recognized brands and is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol SQP.

Previously Jack worked in senior logistics and supply chain management positions with a number of large Canadian corporations in the manufacturing, infrastructure and construction sectors.  He was also President and Partner in a supply chain consulting firm and has significant multi-modal, international transportation procurement experience across a number of industries.

Jack has provided course development support for industry leading CITT program and has written and appeared in dozens of leading trade magazines. He has also provided course facilitation for the CITT and the PMAC and served on the Executive Board of Directors for SCL Canada.

Over the past 28 years, Boris Tsinman has applied his Mechanical Engineering education to his work within the Procurement and Supply Chain fields in both the public and private sectors. Through his work, Boris strives to create a climate of fiscal responsibility by ensuring procurement requests are congruent with the fiscal and strategic goals of an organization, as well as with supply chain regulations. His implementation of optimal supply chain management practices, policies and standards results in having the right product in the right place at the right time, creating cost efficiencies.

In his current role within the health care field, Boris provides key support and expertise to clinical areas in minimizing overall supply spending, while maintaining the highest quality of care to patients.

Prior to his work in the health care field, Boris worked as a Mechanical Engineer in the private sector, followed by 17 years with the Federal Government of Canada, primarily in the field of Procurement and Contract Administration for Science and Professional Services, Environmental Projects, Research and Development and Electronics at the Department of Public Works and Government Services Canada. As a member of the team responsible for the construction of the 13-kilometre Confederation Bridge, which links Prince Edward Island to Canada’s mainland, Boris was the recipient of both the Departmental Achievement Award from Public Works Government Services Canada (PWGSC), and the Treasury Board of Canada’s Award of Excellence.

Dipesh has over fifteen years of experience in fortune 500 companies, of which more than ten years in senior positions with focus in Supply Chain, including Procurement, Distribution and Logistics as well as Product Development, Operations, Business Development, Strategic Planning and Information Technology.

He joined Niagara Parks Commission in 2014 as Director of Corporate Procurement, responsible for sourcing and risk management of the diverse departments’ needs. In Dipesh’s current role, he leads the transformation of the procurement organization through strategic planning and change management principles. His core focus and practice is that by working closely with internal clients, he targets breakthrough results for the organization by implementing a balanced scorecard and driving performance through people.

Dipesh holds a MSc. degree in Computer Information Systems from University of Phoenix and is pursuing an MBA from Kellogg-Schulich program from York University and Northwestern University, Chicago.

At Bell, Munish Dhanker leads a team of category experts responsible for the strategic sourcing of the Corporate Services indirect spend category. This represents an annual spend of over $500M comprising categories such as Contingent Workforce, Financial Services, Human Resources, Benefits, Training, IT, Site Services, Mail and Courier etc. The team’s mandate is to source services at the most optimal combination of cost, quality and delivery. These efforts have resulted in delivering over $15M of annual savings in the last year alone while enhancing service levels. All this has been made possible through the efficient utilization of various procurement tools such as e-Auctions, eRFx etc. Our current priority is to implement tools that will further enhance our services sourcing and data analytics capabilities.

Cheryll Cruz is the General Manager, Supply Chain for Weatherford’s Canadian region. Weatherford is one of the largest global providers of products and services that span the drilling, evaluation, completion, production and intervention cycles of oil and natural gas wells. She joined Weatherford in 2008 in various Supply Chain roles, but her current focus is on procurement and category management. Her primary objective in these areas is to build strong capabilities in Weatherford’s people, processes and technology. In this role she collaborates with cross-functional teams representing the various Product Lines, Global Supply Chain, other Weatherford regions, Health and Safety, Legal, Trade Compliance and Finance. Current opportunities include continued maturity of the region’s category management program, managing the region’s compliance to procurement policies and standard operating procedures, and developing a comprehensive vendor prequalification program.
 
Before joining Weatherford, she held various roles with Canadian Pacific Railway from 2003-2008. Cheryll holds a degree in Political Economy and Business Administration from Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. Her personal interests include traveling (she's enjoyed visiting various countries in Europe and Asia, and is keen to visit Latin America and Africa next). She also enjoys reading great books and spending quality time with her family and friends.

Sheraz is a highly progressive customer oriented procurement / integrated Supply Chain leader with 19+ years of global experience working for multi-billion dollar conglomerates/ Fortune 100 companies including Siemens, Rogers Communications and currently Mondelēz International (Ex KRAFT). In these challenging procurement & supply chain leadership roles he has lead global teams in Europe, Middle East Africa, North America and Asia, managed budgets in excess of billion dollars and delivered stellar results in achieving cost efficiencies and making significant contribution to the bottom line through creative, out of the box, supply chain & procurement solutions and state of the art processes. He has received higher education, MBA Supply Chain Management from UK (University of Leicester) and Leadership & Negotiation certification from USA (Harvard Business School). He specializes in Creating procurement and supply chain functions from scratch or transforming an existing one to optimize and introduce excellence.

David Menezes is a Global Sourcing Manager with Kinross Gold Corporation. His responsibilities include designing and implementing strategic management plans for a range of products to fulfil the requirements of 9 operating mines across 6 countries, in addition to supporting the development of new projects.

The global initiatives under his management are driven by concepts such as total cost of ownership and continuous improvement, enabled by strategic relationship development and rigorous sourcing processes. As the coordinator of cross-functional and multi-cultural teams, David focus on unlocking value while mitigating risks, identifying and engaging the right partners in the marketplace and ensuring distinct local requirements are understood and addressed.

Prior to his strategic sourcing role, David held other positions within Kinross Corporate Supply Chain group, enabling global business standards for optimal fit between people, process and technology, focused on Procurement, Warehousing and Logistics.

Brian Petrie, Manager Central Procurement Operation, Canadian Tire Corporation, Distribution has 22 years of experience with CTC, 12 years in Finance and 10 years in Operations. Responsible for all non-labour expenses in Distribution Centres, including consumables, utilities, services, and waste/sustainability management.

James Skuza, Sustainability/Procurement Specialist, Canadian Tire Corporation, Distribution has 2 years of experience with CTC. Responsible for ensuring compliance to environmental legislation, managing waste diversion initiatives and sustainable procurement purchasing across the Distribution Centres.

Sharon was appointed Director, Supply Chain, Strategy, Communications and Information Technologies (IT) on October 28, 2013.

She spearheads a multifunctional team responsible for the development of Supply Chain's strategies, governance, corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy and global IT sourcing.

Sharon started her career 19 years ago by joining Bombardier Aerospace where she held positions of increasing authority and complexity within the Supply Chain (then Procurement) group.

She has worked on a number of Bombardier's development aircraft programs such as the CRJ700 and the Global 5000, and has held various management positions within commodities such as Landing Gear, Electrical Systems, Fuel System, and Auxiliary Power Unit (APU). Most recently, Sharon was Director, Supply Chain, IT Infrastructure and Supplier Management.

Paul Cargnelli manages Commercial Card Sales for Visa Canada. He brings with him extensive experience in the payments and financial services sector. Originally a professional engineer with General Electric, he transitioned to the banking sector where he initially managed various technology initiatives with BMO Financial Group. He has held various senior roles in Finance, Asset & Liability Management and Commercial Card Product development at BMO before joining Visa as the Head of Commercial Card Sales.
 
Paul graduated from the University of Toronto with a Bachelors of Applied Science (Engineering). He has a Master in Business Administration from York University in Toronto and an accounting designation with the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada.  He also holds a Fellowship with the Institute of Canadian Bankers.

Aaron is Vice President of Product and Business Development with more than 15 years of industry experience, including a leadership role at BROWZ since 2003.  As one of the original BROWZ employees, he is responsible for many of the processes and documents used by BROWZ today. His depth of subject matter expertise, coupled with his excellent client focus, enables BROWZ to create configurable solutions implemented globally by the world’s leading organizations. During his career, Aaron has supported many of the world’s largest organizations in the area of supply chain qualification. In his current role, Aaron and his team collaborate with current BROWZ customers to identify and create new solutions relative to the qualification and compliance process. In addition to SURE Qualify, these solutions include workforce management, a financial stability indicator, and improved user experience. His team is also responsible for expansion of SURE Audit, which includes Safety Program and Management System Audits.

Denis Sanchez is a Director of Professional Services at BROWZ, LLC, a global leader in supplier qualification solutions and largest provider to the mining industry. With responsibility over the implementation of contractor prequalification programs across Canada, the US and South America, Denis brings more than 10 years of experience building SCM solutions across multiple industries and geographies with a focus on contractor selection and performance evaluation. The programs he manages support the strategic procurement decisions of Fortune 100 companies.

In 2007, Paul brought his 25 years of experience to MERX to help diversify the organization’s business. During this time, MERX business has grown significantly every year and is recognized as a global leader in the provision of solicitation and vendor management solutions for the public and private sectors.

Highlights of his career in Canada and the U.S. include being a founder in several startup companies, including a successful exit through a sale to Microsoft. He was an early employee at Corel Corporation, one of Canada’s most successful software companies and was responsible for building the company’s first sales and marketing team. He was recruited to be part of a team organized to stabilize and help turn around a large US entertainment software company. He served as a board member at Halogen Software, helping guide the company through a period of high growth leading to public offering in 2013.

Mike currently leads the Strategic Sourcing process for Graphic Packaging International’s indirect materials and services categories.  With over  fifteen years of experience in the Consumer Foods industry serving various roles in accounting, audit and operations management for Campbell Soup Company, and then almost five years as CFO of Tip Top Poultry, Mike is very familiar with the expectations of Graphic Packaging’s Food and Beverage industry customers.   He first worked for Graphic Packaging International as an M & A consultant that led to an assignment to turn around a manufacturing plant struggling with performance and customer service issues.  After implementing a lean pull system that helped support a 20% sales increase for the facility Mike moved into additional roles including Merger Integration where he was charged with identifying the value drivers and achieving the synergies associated with a multi-billion dollar merger.
 
In his current role as Director of Strategic Sourcing for the indirect materials and services, Mike utilizes this value driver approach when assessing GPI’s supply chain and sourcing opportunities.  He asks two questions of his team – “how does this initiative support GPI’s key business strategies, and how does it create additional value for our shareholders?  Completing Villanova University’s Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt program has also helped Mike achieve significant savings beyond price alone in the categories under his team’s management.  Mike believes that most organizations don’t focus enough on the indirect categories and this lack of rigor in processes and scrutiny for these categories makes it a prime opportunity to eliminate waste and build optimized supply chains for suppliers, GPI and it’s customers.    
 
Mike is also responsible for GPI’s Supplier Diversity program. Under his creative leadership GPI’s diversity spend has increased from $34 million to $102 million in just four years.

Currently the National Account Manager for Graphic Packaging focused on the Kellogg account. 

Julie came into the account manager role after spending her first 20 years in packaging research and development for General Foods, Kraft and then Pepsico (Quaker Oats).  With over 30 years of experience in the packaging industry, she brings her technical knowledge and relationship management skills to the sales side of the packaging world.  She has held several different positions at Graphic Packaging including innovation consultant and Business Development manager prior to taking on this role.  She enjoys the day to day challenges of managing a large account as well as the relationships that develop through the course of working to understand and meet customer short and long term needs.

Julie is a graduate of Michigan State University’s School of Packaging.  She lives in Traverse City , MI with her husband Jeff (also a Packaging Engineer from MSU).  Each week she commutes to the home of breakfast and the Kellogg Company - Battle Creek, MI.

Amol is a recognized practitioner with over 15 years domain experience in the procurement and supply chain. He is responsible for customer acquisition and retention and business alliances in Americas and APAC regions. Prior to joining Ivalua, Amol was Executive Director at IBM for its Emptoris business. Prior to IBM, he was Senior Vice President of Sales at Emptoris, Inc. where his team was instrumental to company’s growth and customer successes resulting in acquisition by IBM. Amol has also held management and executive positions with Sterlite Technologies (affiliated with FTSE 100 Vedanta Resources Group), Demantra (acquired by Oracle) and Aspen Technology, which he joined in its early stages of growth. Amol received his Doctorate in Chemical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis.

Thierry Jaffry has established himself as a leader in the B2B software sector with more than 15 years of experience in the spend management and supply chain industry.

A graduate from ISC, major business school in Paris, Thierry spent several years as a project manager in France, before joining BravoSolution, as the head of sales, pre-sales and delivery for France, Switzerland and Morocco.

He joined Ivalua in 2014 (Montreal, Canada) where his role is to design solutions to fit the procurement organizations transformation.

Sandra Gass joined RBC in July 2011 and is currently Product Manager, P2P Solutions, based in Toronto.  Her responsibilities include leading and managing a team for the implementation of P2P solutions, including system and process enhancements, the  implementation and expansion of supplier enablement onto new P2P solutions across North America, increased spend management, increased efficiencies, and enhanced procurement governance.

Sandra has 17 years’ progressive experience across Procurement, Sourcing, Vendor Management and Contract Management, primarily in the financial services industry.  Sandra’s recent focus has been on projects for Procure-To-Pay (P2P) and
Source-To-Pay (S2P) initiatives for the end-to-end transformation of RBC’s supply chain, and improved capabilities to support effective spend, contract and supplier management.

Sandra holds a BA in Business Administration from Ryerson University, and a Certified Supply Chain Management Professional (CSCMP) designation, is a member of the Supply Chain Management of Ontario (SCMAO), is an active member of Golden Gavel Toastmasters in Richmond Hill, and earned Club President of the Year award with Toastmasters International in 2005-2006 for District 86 in Ontario.