Consumer Returns Speaker Faculty

Kory Ashcraft has served in this capacity for three years and is responsible for the company’s inventory control and engineering initiatives. Under his leadership, the engineering team designed the layout for Academy’s new distribution center in Twiggs County, Georgia. He also was the Project Sponsor for the Academy/Inmar CLS returns management implementation. Prior to this role, Kory spent five years as a Financial Analyst in the Retail Industry.

Ken Attaway joined Academy in 2007 and has more than 20 years of experience in retail distribution and logistics. In his current role, he is responsible for Distribution & Logistics, both forward and reverse, for two regional facilities. He also oversees international and domestic logistics operations, vendor compliance, customs compliance, corporate real estate and construction, as well as facilities maintenance. Prior to joining Academy, Ken held positions with Dollar General, Bealls and Western Auto.

Bob Byrnes has over 25 years experience in operation and logistics in start up companies, small and large companies. He focuses on the reverse logistics portion of the business. Prior to starting BBB International, he grew a start up high tech company to $5 million in sales, with 50 employees doing installations worldwide, and ran the US division of a multinational company out of Germany.

Rubina Farooq joined LG in 2005 as a Director of Finance and Planning and moved into operations role in 2007 primarily to reduce returns losses and reduce Home Depot end user returns. Since taking over the position I was able to work with HD & GE to reduce LG’s major appliance returns from over 10% to 5.1% in addition to this I am also responsible for all reverse supply chain management, which includes working with transportation and distribution counter parts to reduce logistics cost. I also work with sales on resale of returns. Prior to joining LG I worked at Sony Electronics for 8 years in variety of Finance Planning and Supply Chain roles.

Bernie Fidler has initiated and directed numerous innovative return reduction efforts during his career - including: Implementation of comprehensive returns planning, tracking and reporting systems, Design
and construction of centralized return facilities, Facilitation of vendor and manufacturing association product return research, Automation of debit and charge back processes. Throughout his career he has successfully accomplished the most complex and demanding initiatives.
Since joining Stuart & Associates Inc. Bernie’s knowledge and leadership has enabled clients to achieve remarkable profit improvements in both product return reduction initiatives and in merger, consolidation and restructuring initiatives

Antony Francis leads the strategy and oversees operations for ATC Logistics & Electronics (ATCLE). With 29 years of experience in all aspects of global supply chain and logistics services, he brings a unique perspective to ATCLE’s worldwide customer base.
Prior to joining ATCLE in June 2007, Francis was President and COO of Plan Express, Inc., a document management, printing and logistics company serving the construction industry. Previously, he served as acting COO of NewRoads, Inc., a catalog and e-commerce fulfillment provider. Francis was also Vice President and General Manager of the Logistics and Electronic Commerce Division for Federal Express’ European, Middle Eastern and African headquarters. In addition, he has worked for Ernst & Young in Europe, the Middle East and in Africa.

Chris Griffin is a Senior Manager with Sprint Nextel. He is responsible for strategic and operational planning for the Repair Services and Reverse Logistics organization. Over the past 11 years, Chris has held a variety of Financial and Operations positions in the technology and consulting industries, including Accenture and Fujitsu Transaction Solutions.

Kurt Hulander is an 8 year veteran of Best Buy. He is a classically trained consumer marketer from his experiences at Gillette and The Pillsbury Company but his role at Best Buy has evolved from traditional marketing roles to bringing new growth initiatives to market. In addition to traditional product marketing, he has been involved in new retail format development, spent several years immersed in the Best Buy Customer Centricity which has transformed how the company goes to market, and taught a customer centric business approach to international partners. Kurt is currently Director of Strategy for the Best Buy Secondary Markets business team, a role he has held since November of 2008.

Ryan Humphrey has held a variety of positions during his nine-year tenure with the company. Humphrey began his career as an analyst, quickly rising through the service organization to become regional pricing manger, and later, director of pricing and business analysis groups. He has been serving in his currently role overseeing global professional services and working with high-profile technology clients to customize and optimize their supply chains since 2008. Prior to ModusLink, Humphrey worked for Charles & Colvard in an operations accounting/assistant controller role. Before that, he held various financial and industrial engineering positions with Toyota Motor Manufacturing.

Tom Marcellino serves as Executive Vice President, Business Development for Inmar CLS. Prior to this role, Tom was Senior Vice President, Sales and Client Services. Since joining Inmar CLS in 2003, his expertise in client management and strategic planning have delivered strong results for new and existing clients. Tom has an extensive background in retail services having held positions with Huffy Service and NCR Corporation, where he was Vice President, Industry Marketing - ECR.

Larry Roberts is responsible for Supply Chain Management including, Order Management (Customer Service), Logistics, Distribution,, Reverse Logistics, and Product Refurbishment. Prior to Casio America, Larry was SVP Operations for Newsight Inc, a global Digital Network Service Company, worked for Samsung Electronics as Director of US Consumer Operations; and Sony Electronics in a number of responsibilities over a 16 year career including the Six Sigma Steering Committee, Supply Chain Management, Product Returns Reduction, Director of US Consumer Operations, and Financial Controller.

Charles T. Schaefer oversees Sharp's North and South America service networks, customer assistance centers, service engineering, channel returns centers and product refurbishment and repair operations. Schaefer’s organization prides itself on operational excellence and flawless execution in order to ensure industry-leading levels of customer satisfaction enhancing the Sharp brands. During his tenure, Mr. Schaefer’s group has been responsible for several key brand-enhancing initiatives, including the introduction of the AQUOS Advantage Program, which provides premium support for Sharp’s AQUOS LCD-TV customers.

Schaefer’s current involvement within the service industry includes his participation on NESDA’s (National Electronic Servicing Dealers Association) Board of Directors, NESDA’s Marketing and Membership Committee and CEA’s Service & Customer Care Council.

Tony Sciarrotta focused the entire Philips organization on return reduction activities to drive down returns and associated costs. He implemented processes, which are “Best in Class” in the consumer electronics industry. In less than 5 years, he reduced returns by over 50% in units and over $100 million dollars annually. He worked with both regional and global teams in strategic and tactical projects to help reduce the cost of non-quality by over 30% in a 2-year period.

With effective returns management processes in place for Philips in the USA, Tony Sciarrotta has assumed responsibility for maximizing asset recovery of all returned consumer goods. By utilizing strategic account alliances, product channelization, web based sales outlets, and retail store partnerships, Tony has specifically targeted best avenues for reselling refurbished goods at a model level. Working with finance support, Tony developed tools for forecast analysis, allowing for a pre-selling plans based on optimum recovery rates and maximum sales rates.

Matt Snyder is responsible for running asset recovery operations in the Americas. This includes product returns from all sales areas and off leases systems. He has 15 years of supply chain experience, covering logistics, planning, strategy, and operations. With particular expertise in lean enterprise transformations, Matt has led organizations through both out-sourcing and in-sourcing decisions, as well as significant lean 6 sigma process improvements.

Jeff Stratman manages three key functions:
Product Procurement – buying clearance and factory refurbished products for resale on Best Buy’s online outlet center.
Product Return Center Operations – processing over a billion dollars of annual product flow in from stores and out to manufacturers or liquidation partners.
Business Process Development (At-Risk Management) – working with merchant teams, manufacturers and stores on root-cause analysis and strategies to reduce end-of-life inventory and damage write-off expense.

His 21-year-career in sales and marketing began as a commissioned salesperson at Best Buy in 1988 – then a company with just 30 stores (now a 4,000+ store international enterprise). After eight years in Best Buy stores, he moved to the corporate office in 1996 where he has since held increasingly important roles in Retail Operations and Merchandising. Past merchant responsibilities include Senior Buyer in Advanced Television Services and Large TV and Merchant Director in Computer Peripherals and Home Theater Accessories, Furniture and Home Automation.

Bill Stuart had over 20 years of retail experience prior to starting Stuart & Associates in 1995. He has a proven track record of turning problems into profits by providing substantial gains in revenue, margin and bottom-line profits. He held every major field operations position from District Manager, Regional Merchandiser to Group Vice-President of store operations during his retail career. His ability to work with retailers and manufacturers in the development of selling strategies, return reduction programs, and best in class training has gained him the respect of the top retailers and manufacturers.

Craig Sultan has over 18 years of experience in the areas of distribution, logistics and reverse logistics. Craig began his homedepot.com career with responsibility for vendor on-boarding and implementation of their order management system. He was an instrumental part of the project team that launched their current website engine.
Craig currently oversees returns reduction, returns processing, store returns integration, and liquidation.

Jennifer Sweeney has been with Comcast Corporation for 7 years. During her time at Comcast, she has spent 5 years in the Chicago Region in Customer Care and Technical Operations roles before joining the corporate team in Philadelphia in 2007. Currently, Jennifer is responsible for Comcast’s Self-Install Operations, overseeing packaging design, fulfillment operations, and device activation.

Stephen P. Tryon joined Overstock.com in August 2004, and has primary responsibility for logistics and supervision of the Company's warehouse operations, and most recently, managing the Company's human resources. Prior to joining Overstock.com, Mr. Tryon was the Legislative Assistant to the Chief of Staff of the United States Army. During his 21 years with the Army, his assignments included director of plans for the 10th Mountain Division, Congressional Fellow for United States Senator Max Cleland, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the United States Military Academy, and commander of a company of paratroopers.