Speaker Bios

One of the most in-demand speakers and communications consultants in America, Ken Schmidt has lived a life that most can only dream about. He has toured the world on two wheels, met with presidents and royalty, partied with movie and music legends, and appeared numerous times on network news. As the former director of communications for Harley-Davidson Motor Company, he played an active role in one of the most celebrated turnarounds in corporate history - and got paid to ride motorcycles.

In 1997, Schmidt left Harley-Davidson to take an ownership position with a highly successful Chicago-based marketing firm, VSA Partners. In addition to Harley-Davidson, VSA serves many other of the world's best-known brands, including General Motors, Coca-Cola, IBM, and Campbell's Soup. In July 1999, he sold his portion of VSA to start his own business, Ken Schmidt Company, and slow down the pace of his life.

As Vice President of Marketing, Jessica is responsible for the strategic direction and management of all marketing, communications and public relations initiatives for the 300-plus member network. She works with members on marketing planning and ways to best grow their business. She is involved in marketing research, hands-on training, direct marketing programs, social networking, web marketing, community involvement, public relations, email marketing and more. She focuses on helping members integrate traditional channels with new media to create integrated marketing campaigns that drive results. Jessica is a key player on the management team and helps develop the strategic vision and direction for the future. Jessica has her MBA in Marketing Management and is involved with the International Association of Business Communicators and Direct Marketing Association.

Born and raised in Glendale, CA, Mike's father Richard Sevigny founded Chromatic in 1978. Mike has experience in all departments of print, old and new, working after school for his father throughout his childhood.

Mike graduated from California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo in 1990 with a BS in Graphic Communications. Mike along with his brother Keith, (now owners) have brought the 2 million dollar mom and pop shop into a 6 million + dollar, multi-media communications firm, that includes magazine publishing, direct mail, image personalization and variable data via their two Canon Image presses, Multiple Komori offset presses as well as extensive pre-press and finishing departments..

Jeff Pinkin is regarded as a habitual innovator and cross discipline value creation leader. His focus is on converging sales, marketing and technology functions, particularly in the realm of CRM and customer experience management. With a unique acumen attained through over fifteen years of delivering innovative solutions and consultation to leading brand marketers, he delivers strong subject expertise spanning direct marketing, print, IT, fulfillment and logistics.Distinguished results include delivering solutions & value to strong brands such as BMW, P&G, Merrill Lynch, Novartis, and Unilever.

CCG Marketing Solutions is a leader in providing full service integrated marketing programs to Consumer Health, FMCG, Automotive, and Pharmaceutical companies faced with executing vital, time-critical and budget sensitive sales, marketing, and commercial operations strategies..

Brian Thompson is Superintendent in the Division of Information Technology Services at Northern Illinois University. With a focus on information security and operations, the division has partnered with many industry organizations to ensure efficiency and best practices. Their Document Services' in-plant operation manages campus' mainframe, variable printing, and offset production of the university's branding, collateral, and promotional needs.

Prior to joining NIU, Brian consulted with clients to design and implement major programs in the communications, banking-finance, healthcare, education and manufacturing industries. He has leveraged a background in strategy development, operations management and finance to improve business results. As a consultant, Brian has provided strategic planning, operations analysis, business process reengineering, and information systems requirements to Fortune 500 companies.

Jeff is President of Karstedt Partners, and has an extensive background in identifying, developing, and securing growth strategies across a variety of industries including electrical equipment, metal processing, packaging, and printing equipment.

Jeff has held a variety of senior management positions with General Electric, Temple Inland, and Sun Chemical. He began his career as a consultant in the area of turnaround management and has been engaged by investment firms, regional banks, and venture capital companies to assess the strategic, operational, and financial health of assets under their control. Jeff utilized his packaging background and experience in strategy development to assist digital technology developers in assessing and developing commercialization strategies for new and emerging digital markets. As part of Karstedt Partners, Jeff works with technology providers, suppliers, print service providers, and consumer product companies to identify opportunities for competitive differentiation and added value capture through this potentially disruptive technology.

Founded in 1988 and located in Wayzata, MN, Group 3 Marketing is a boutique marketing agency delivering strategic, analytical, and tactical solutions for specialty retailers and B2B marketers. We help our clients grow their business from the inside out by focusing on their customers and creating personalized incentives to influence their next sale.

The company is active in multiple trade association groups and President Bart Foreman is an active speaker in support of database driven marketing focused initiatives. Foreman, the company founder, has a 46 year career in sales and marketing. He holds an MBA from DePaul University and a BA from the University of Michigan.

After a successful career as a statistician developing predictive models with Applied Marketing Statistics Inc., Serge became the Senior Research Scientist with the Institute for Market Statistical Analysis where he entrenched the concept of response and penetration models in place of generic segmentation systems.

As President of SMRT, Serge focused on establishing the concepts of relationship marketing within the Direct Marketing industry through the automation of complex multivariate analytics. Serge's exceptional talents have been enjoyed by the data intensive corporations. His proprietary software had generated the first boundless segmentation platform for the financial services that was further enhanced through the application of specialized predictive modeling techniques.

Over the past seven years, Serge has established himself as the industry expert in workflow integration for Direct Response applications by creating a new business model of converging technologies. This approach uses the integration of data, geo-statistical analytics, and asset management across a myriad of communication channels including social media.

A natural speaker, Serge is often presenting at conferences throughout the world on 'How To' design, develop and deliver knowledge driven multi-channel systems.

For more than a decade, Jeff worked directly with students in Southern California to create high quality political awareness and involvement programs. Jeff ran the highly successful Symposium on Los Angeles Politics and Government and has also run programs on California and Texas state politics and government as well as overseeing a prestigious speakers program in Washington, D.C. He was JSA's executive director from 2008-2010.

In 1991, Lexinet Corporation began with a simple vision: Help our customers effectively communicate with their customers. Although the channels and tools have changed and evolved, Lexinet continues today to realize that vision offering custom marketing solutions including campaign strategy and management, design, data analysis and segmentation, custom programming, web to print, 1:1 personalization, digital print, email marketing, social marketing, analytics, and more. During her 12 years as a member of the Lexinet Corporation team, Christy has gained valuable knowledge in all aspects of Lexinet's full range of marketing solutions offerings. In her role as marketing manager, Christy believes in "practicing what we preach" by delivering personalized, relevant and innovative marketing communications to customers and prospects through multiple channels.

As President of TurningPoint Strategy, Tony Collins is a leading authority on small business competitive strategy. He has worked at senior levels in large corporations,start-ups, turn-arounds and venture-backed entities. For the last 10 years, he has worked alongside presidents and business owners in business-to-business service and printing industries to help them create high-performance competitive and market strategies.

Ben formed his first start-up at the age of 14 - DSC, a Chicago-based mobile audio installation and sales group – providing turnkey mobile audio solutions for fellow high school students. Ben went on to study business and entrepreneurship during his undergraduate studies at Stetson University, where he was introduced to Mike Panaggio – founder of DME. Immediately after graduating, Ben went to work for DME as a marketing consultant, learning the ropes of database driven marketing. In 2008, Ben was promoted to principal and CEO of DME Studios, the digital media branch of DME.

Ben currently works with his creative team to develop strategic integrated marketing plans for businesses of every size, from multi-national corporations to budding start-ups. Through Ben's leadership, DME Studios has become a leader in innovative marketing and multi-media production by combining the principles of database driven marketing with the irrefutable creative talent of the DME Studios team and their digital media solutions.

Dave Erlandson is General Manager of Caslon & Co. a firm that specializes in helping companies take advantage of the new business opportunities enabled by digital printing. One of Caslon's primary activities is to serve as the North American Affiliate for PODi, the Digital Print Initiative. PODi is a leading industry initiative focused on developing the market for digital printing through market education and standards activities.

For PODi, Dave's key responsibilities are managing membership and content for Print Service Providers. This includes the annual collection and publication of best practices in digital printing, creating strategic solution selling tools, producing webinars and reports, and producing PODi's annual Application Forum.

Dave's responsibilities include leading Caslon's Production Digital Printing (PDP) Research and Advisory service, which serves the vendor community through its application-based market research and analysis.

During his 20+ year industry career, Howie Fenton has advised commercial printers, in-plants, and manufacturers on workflow management, operations, digital services, and customer research.

With both commercial and in-plant printers, he focuses on benchmarking financial and operational effectiveness and determining the cost of internal manufacturing vs. that of outsourcing. He identifies and repairs inefficient estimating, customer service, and production processes, as well as bottlenecks and quality control issues.

Using NAPL proprietary research tools, Fenton reviews the competitiveness of commercial and in-plant company products, services, and staff; studies and quantifies the changes in customer needs; and helps companies add new products and digital services that will increase sales and profitability.

His two books on digital and variable data printing has led him to serve as a judge for the PODi Best Practices Awards and Xerox Pixi awards, and work on the PIA Digital Printing Council and HP Digital Printing Advisory Council.

Tawnya Starr first learned the power of the web in 1999 when she experienced phenomenal sales growth after launching a website for her printing company in New Mexico. In April 2000, she became president of PrinterPresence. Today, PrinterPresence provides websites, web-to-print and marketing solutions to over 3,000 printing and graphics companies on 5 continents. Ms. Starr has dedicated her career to educating the printing industry on web marketing and how companies of any size can save time and money while attracting and retaining customers. In 2005, she received the prestigious Industry Award of Distinction from PrintImage International for her service as an outstanding consultant and educator to the industry and was presented with OutputLinks Women of Distinction Award in 2010. Ms. Starr is a featured columnist for Quick Printing magazine.

Larry Zusman is manager, worldwide marketing for XMPie, responsible for global branding, marketing communications, collaterals, advertising, direct marketing and events. Zusman has over 20 years' experience in direct marketing, advertising and print communications, having served as an executive for agencies, corporations and print providers. He is a noted speaker on the subject of 1 to 1 marketing, cross media communications and digital print, and a presenter at industry conferences, including Xerox events, Graph Expo, drupa, AIIM/On Demand, Xplor, DMA, Printing Industries of America (PIA) conferences, corporate seminars and advertising meetings. He also is a frequent contributor to industry publications and websites.

Additional speakers will be announced soon.

Bill Nicholson has extensive experience in sales, project management and business strategy. Bill works with clients to understand their needs and structure projects to deliver stated objectives in a cost effective and timely manner. At e-Integrity, he has implemented web-to-print and workflow projects for clients such as Staples, Travelers, Invisalign, Chubb and Hilton Worldwide. The e-Integrity project for Invisalign won the 2008 PODi award for Collateral Management/Personalized collateral.

The group Chief Executive Officer of Eclipse, Hans van Lith, is a pioneer in variable data digital printing. In the late 1990's he was responsible for the development of the first complex variable data solution for digital print applications. Prior to being the founder of Eclipse in 2006, he spent the previous ten years at RR Donnelley where he held several operational and management positions. In addition to being the Managing Director at the Digital Print Solutions division in the Netherlands, he was a Member of the European Management Board and responsible for international strategic development, realizing a significant expansion of the group's digital activities worldwide.

Nai Sok has had a passion for the marketing industry for years; starting her career with a small marketing agency in 2003 where she began to cultivate her skills. In 2007 she joined an industrial bank to help bolster its brand and sales. In 2011, Sok joined AlphaGraphics to assist with its first major rebrand in over 40 years. Sok is an avid baker and has a love for movies and the entertainment industry.

Prior to AlphaGraphics, Chad served as VP of Marketing and Technology for Black Bear Resort. Chad owned and operated a marketing consulting firm from for 8 years prior to selling the firm in 2008.

Michael Stone is a 20-year veteran of the printing industry specializing in forms production, commercial printing and mailing, large format printing, and promotional products as well as web to print applications. Sourcing the unusual and making impossible deadlines possible are what separates Mike from his competition.

Christopher Wright is a subject-matter expert in the field of digital printing and web-to-print toolkits. Driven by the unique perspective of working on all three sides of the marketing industry over the past 15 years – as an Agency Executive, Director of Marketing, and Director of Sales for a leading Marketing Services Provider – Wright leverages his invaluable experience and strategic mind to collaborate with high-profile clients such as Hallmark and Hilton Worldwide to deliver highly-successful, turnkey marketing solutions. The DoubleTree by Hilton is Wright's 6th PODi published case study.