The Chicago conference brought together an impressive list of speakers who showed us how across a wide range of subjects we could take charge of the changing ways of doing business.

 

Amy Wagner, Director Retail Marketing at Walgreens gave us the client perspective on the changing dynamic of the agency / client relationship and how it's impacting on marketing communications.

 

Gwen Morrison, CO-CEO of The Store talked about 'Retailing on the Edge' and gave us a global tour of exceptional retailers and how they thrive in an environment of dramatic change to help us understand the ever changing face of retail.

 

Simon Tiffen, Senior Strategist at Wunderman and Cameron Friedlander, VP Global Innovations at Designkitchen took us through the ever changing mobile and retail reality.

 

Alexandra Smith, Director Consumer Trends at Mintel looked to the future and shared with us Mintel's thoughts on what the world is going to look like in 2015.

 

Peter Hoyt, CEO & Founder of The Path to Purchase Institute gave an armchair interview that took us through the origins of shopper marketing and answered questions from delegates on the current trends in shopper marketing.

 

Ross Kimbarovsky, Founder of crowdSPRING showed how can agencies change, evolve and embrace crowdsourcing to gain an edge in a very competitive global market.

 

Marc Wayshak, author of Game Plan Selling gave us insights into how we can stand out from competition, develop a system to help close more sales and double sales.

 

Richard Farrell, President of Tangent Knowledge Systems shoiwed us that selling has nothing to do with selling! We learnt how to qualify new opportunities, how to have a compelling value statement and how to sound different to gain attention.