Feature: THE VA CONFERENCE – INDUSTRY SPEAKERS

A highly impressive and informative group of leading industry experts will be providing valuable insight, advice and comment at the fourth annual Va conference, which is due to take place on Thursday 29th March at The Jumeirah Carlton Tower, London.

A diverse and thought-provoking array of subjects will be covered in the conference:

I’m sure these topics will promote serious and fascinating discussions among the speakers and delegates.

The opening guest speaker, Martin Butler, Chairman of one of London’s leading retail advertising and marketing agencies, RPM3, will begin by providing an eye-opening account that reveals the secrets to the success of some of the UK’s top retailers as examined in his book, ‘People don’t buy what you sell, they buy what you stand for’.

Keynote speaker, Michelle Lapierre, Head of Marketing Strategy at Marriott International, will be presenting ‘Generations At Work - The Power of Customer Demographics’. This session will provide a valuable insight into how voucher issuers can effectively utilise demographics to identify the key consumer touch-points for each generation so that gift cards and vouchers can be targeted appropriately.

Paul Stanley (First Data), Chris Reddish (MasterCard Europe) and Ashley Winton (White & Case) will be using their combined wealth of experience in PrePaid solutions to break down the jargon and provide a more definitive guide to the various options that are available when deciding which retailers and companies will be able to redeem vouchers.

Robert Courtneidge (Osborne Clarke), John Ward (Ernst & Young) and Dominic Peachey (Financial Services Authority) will cover tax regulation, which applies to all aspects of the industry and the stored value market is no different. Speakers will seek to demystify tax regulations including VAT, e-money as well as look at the possibility of industry lead self-regulation.

The afternoon will start off with a panel of experts being divided into two groups. The B2B panel will include Fionnuala Behal (Accentiv’ International), Tim Bishop (Lastminute.com) and Alexandre Meerson (Sodexho Worldwide). The B2B market in the UK is critical to the overall success of any stored value strategy and delegates will have the opportunity to hear specialists from worldwide incentive agencies share their insights from across the globe along with an inside look into e-vouchers.

The consumer panel will include Bernard Grant (Debenhams), Russell Morris (Sainsbury’s), Andrew Sellers (John Lewis) and David-Joseph Brown (Serious Europe). From a European perspective the UK is a leader in stored value systems. However, the Americans and Australians have much to teach us and we ask our panel what knowledge they can pass on to us including new applications of digital media on gift cards.

This is certainly a full and varied programme and one that is guaranteed to leave delegates with a great deal of food for thought to take home with them.

See you on the day!