Syed Akbar Ali
Genpact India
Syed Akbar Ali, CPP, is Senior Consultant for Pricing Sciences Team and also leads the Marketing Analytics Team for Genpact, India. In his current role, Akbar has developed several Credit Risk & Predictive Models and Sales Dashboards that provide key metrics and insights that are being utilized to evaluate pricing effectiveness and efficiency. He has a total of 8 years experience working in industries like Analytics, Primary Market Research and Financial Markets.

 

Akbar received a B.Com degree from Osmania University and MBA degree in Marketing Management from Vishveshwariah Technological University in India. Additionally, he holds a Six Sigma Greenbelt certification.

 

His hobbies include reading ancient history, Philately and Computing. He achieved designation as a Certified Pricing Professional from the Professional Pricing Society in 2010.

Sudipto Banerjee
The Boston Consulting Group
Sudipto Banerjee, CPP, is a Project Leader at The Boston Consulting Group. and is based in Atlanta, GA. Sudipto brings more than 12 years of pricing and product management experience in both the B2B and B2C sectors.

 

Sudipto has worked across a variety of industries such as automotive, diversified industrial products, services, CPG, and retail to name a few. His primary focus is to help companies enhance margin through better price realization and optimization. Sudipto has helped companies develop and articulate their pricing and product strategies to their customers in diverse geographical and economic conditions.

 

Sudipto has an MBA from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University, Atlanta. He also has a second MBA from the International Management Institute, India and holds a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering from India. Sudipto lives in Atlanta, GA with his lovely wife, Rupa, and newborn daughter, Shayna. His hobbies include singing and pursuing to be a scotch connoisseur.

 

He achieved the Certified Pricing Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in Fall 2009.

Wayne Blanchard
CenturyLink
Wayne Blanchard is the Manager, Strategic Opportunity Group in the Enterprise Pricing organization at CenturyLink. CenturyLink is a new company formed by the acquisition of Embarq by CenturyTel, and provides local voice, data, and video services in 33 states.

 

Wayne is responsible for project managing CenturyLink’s responses to customer RFPs, and for all customized customer requirements. Wayne has twenty years professional experience in Pricing, Product Management, and Program Management in the telecommunications industry.

 

Wayne was responsible for the design and development of a sales pricing tool that allows field sales to obtain real time pricing for products and services. The tool also enabled flexible pricing options that adjust compensation based on implied margins. Wayne has a BS in Business Administration with an emphasis in Accounting from Columbia College.

 

He achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in June 2009.

David Brown
CenturyLink
David Brown is Strategic Pricing Manager for Embarq, a position he has held since 2007. David joined Embarq (a spin-off company from Sprint) in 2005 as Regional Marketing Manager for Ohio and Indiana. Prior, David spent 15 years at Sprint in various marketing and public relations capacities.

 

Currently, David works in the business marketing division where he develops strategies to optimize revenue and increase market share for a portfolio of telecommunication products. In addition, David defines market opportunities by analyzing the competitive landscape and developing pricing strategies that extract the most value for the organization.

 

David resides in Cincinnati, Ohio with his wife Sarah. He holds a B.A in Business and an M.B.A from Bluffton University in Bluffton, Ohio.

 

He achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in the Summer of 2009.

Ben Daniel
JDA Software
Ben Daniel is a Business Consultant in the Revenue Management practice with JDA Software. JDA Software is a recognized leader in pricing and revenue management solutions for air cargo, passenger rail, travel, hospitality, and television media.

 

Ben’s expertise is in Television Media Revenue Management where he is responsible for system requirements analysis and the implementation of solutions that manage and optimize over $1 Billion of client inventory. His background includes solution development in CRM, scientific modeling data management, and budget planning and analysis.

 

He holds both an MBA (2007) and a BBA (1999) from The Terry College of Business at The University of Georgia, where he did extensive work and research in Revenue Management. He in addition holds a certificate in Business Analytics from The Data Warehousing Institute.

 

Ben earned the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in the Fall of 2009.

Timothy P. Dinan
Berks Packing Co. Inc.
Tim Dinan, CPP, is the Vice President of Finance at Berks Packing Co. Inc., and is the pricing team facilitator for the company’s center-led pricing organization. The pricing team has successfully implemented some of the processes taught by the pricing society such as price waterfalls, competitive price analysis, customer profitability, and value-added service analysis. The team’s goal is to achieve the level of world class pricing as it understands the critical nature of pricing to the company’s success.

 

Tim earned his B.S. in Accounting from the University of Scranton. He is a certified public accountant along with a certification in production & inventory management. He recently successfully completed the certified financial planning exam. He is also an adjunct professor at Alvernia University where he has taught classes in Accounting & Finance.

 

Tim earned the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in the Spring of 2010.

Win Dyer
EMBARQ
Win Dyer is currently a Strategic Pricing Manager for EMBARQ, a local telecommunications provider with services in 18 states. He has over 16 years of industry pricing experience in both strategic and special pricing functions with products of varying geographical appeal ranging from local, to national, to international demand. During this time Win has also worked pricing issues/strategies associated with retail, wholesale and government sectors.

 

In 2004, Win created a segmentation strategy for a product to better target customers as well as improve its competitiveness. After implementation, the product enjoyed an average annual growth of 36% over the next three years, exceeding both unit and revenue targets. Win also developed a new flexible pricing structure for another product in 2007 which created a linkage to Sales compensation to ensure that corporate profit goals were aligned with Sales incentives.

 

Win has a BS in Accounting from William Jewell College which included a semester of overseas study at Oxford University. He also holds an MBA in International Business from Rockhurst University and is a CPA in the state of Missouri.

 

Win achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in Summer 2009.

Roger Estafanos
IBM Global Business Services
Roger Estafanos is a Senior Managing Consultant in IBM Global Business Services and is based in the New York City area. Roger provides advisory and consulting expertise to top Life Sciences companies in pricing strategy, pricing operational strategy, and price analytics.

 

In the Life Sciences industry, Roger is recognized as a subject matter expert in pricing and contracting strategy, market access, managed markets, channel strategy, and sales and marketing transformation. He has helped companies develop, articulate and implement their pricing strategies. In addition to Life Sciences, Roger has worked across various industries such as healthcare, distribution, technology, media research, semiconductor and non-profit.

 

Roger lives in Central New Jersey, US, and received his MBA with an emphasis in Strategic Management and Marketing from Rutgers Business School. He achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in August 2010.

John Felker
Ardex Americas
John Felker, CPP, is the Manager of the Preferred Partner Program and Key Accounts for Ardex Americas. John is in his fourth year with Ardex and has also held positions of Key Account Manager and OEM Manager. John’s responsibilities include developing and managing relationships and support programs for key distributors, installation networks and industry association groups. John has led and participated in several corporate initiative project groups that resulted in new product and program development. Prior to Ardex, John held several sales and management positions within the building materials industry including Territory Manager, Regional Sales Manager and National Accounts Manager.

 

John is a graduate of The Ohio State University with Bachelors degree in Business Administration Marketing and has completed the Breakthrough Intensive course with GAP International. Inc. John lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with his wife and three children.

 

John achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in Winter 2010.

Sudha G
GENPACT
Sudha has been with GENPACT since 2006. She has rich experience in Pricing Analytics in Healthcare equipments industry. She has worked on with different kinds of databases and has been part of a pricing software implementation for Ultrasound business. She holds an MBA degree specialised in Systems and Marketing.

 

Sudha achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in Summer 2009.

Kim Gordon
The Boeing Company
Kim Gordon is a Senior Pricing Analyst in Material Management, part of the Customer Services Division of Boeing Commercial Airplanes. He began his career at Boeing in 1986 on the 747-400 launch program as a production planner. Since moving over to the finance world, he has worked in Procurement Cost Support, Financial Planning, Cost Management and Estimating and Pricing. He has held management roles in Cost Management, where he managed the Engineering budget for the 747 and 767 programs, and Estimating and Pricing where he managed twenty two people pricing sales and quotes.

 

Last year he led the development and implementation of his organization’s “pricing maturity model” with emphasis in four areas: strategy, policy and execution, analytics and metrics, and organization and culture.

 

Kim attended Seattle Pacific University where he received his B.A. in Marketing.

 

He enjoys spending time with his wife and four kids. Favorite pastimes include watching his son play soccer, traveling and outdoor photography. Someday he would like to see and photograph all of the U.S. National Parks.

 

He achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in April 2010.

Kamatham Sri Harsha
GENPACT
Kamatham Sri Harsha, CPIM, CPP, is a Pricing and Sales Analyst with Genpact, a leader in the globalization of services and technology and a pioneer in managing business processes for companies around the world located in Bangalore, India.

 

For the past two years Harsha has focused on the Sales & Marketing Analytics business, providing analytical guidance to the business managers with respect to Customer Preferences, Segmentation & Pricing. Prior to this, Harsha prepared, analyzed and provided pricing for various products of a major industrial business in the US. His business experience has been in Heavy Industry, Electrical & Lighting, Security and Oil & Gas.

 

Harsha holds a Certified in Production & Inventory Management from APICS. He has been a member of the PPS since 2009, achieving his Certified Pricing Professional designation in Fall 2010.

Michael Johnson
Siemens Healthcare
Michael Johnson, CPP, has been employed with Siemens Healthcare for 10 years. Siemens Healthcare is a healthcare technology innovation leader. His roles within the organization have included contract administrator, team lead, pricing analyst, and financial analyst. His start in analyst work was pricing for services. In this role, he was responsible for price research, development, and implementation.

 

He later advanced to budget and profitability development for the projects. This responsibility spanned multiple projects across three regions, which allowed him to witness the downstream effects of pricing as it impacted the bottom line. This role was pivotal in understanding how instances of relying upon revenue-only sales strategies, cost-plus pricing, heavy discount policies, and competitive price pressures impact the profitability of a company. In his latest analyst role, he is anticipating complementing his service skill set with knowledge of the equipment side of the business.

 

Michael is a North Carolina native. He enjoys spending time with his family and fishing. He achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in November 2010.

Shashank Khare
Vistaar Technologies
Shashank Khare is a Solution Architect at Vistaar Technologies. Vistaar is an innovator of price management solutions that enable companies to achieve pricing best practices through end-to-end price analytics, price optimization, price list management, and deal management. Vistaar is working with companies such as AMD, Beam Global, Cisco, Ford and GE to transform pricing operations into a strategic advantage. For these companies, Vistaar pricing software drives measurable price and margin improvements that deliver profitable growth and maximum shareholder value.

 

Shashank’s expertise is in system requirements analysis, design and implementation for fortune 500 clients in North America & Europe. His role includes solution development in Pricing Strategy, Price Setting, and Price Execution. In his prior role at i2 Technologies (now JDA Software) he has executed multiple projects in Forecast Optimization using OLAP based technologies.

 

He holds Bachelor’s in Electronics Engineering (1997) from Walchand College of Engineering, India and a diploma in Advanced Computing from ACTS, CDAC. He in addition holds a Certified Supply Chain Professional accreditation from APICS (2007).

 

Shashank earned the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in the Fall of 2010.

Sunil Kumar
GENPACT
Sunil is Senior Consultant at GENPACT Analytics Center of Excellence where he is leading Commercial Support and Pricing Analytics team which provides an end to end Pricing Analytics support to help build and augment the capability on Price Setting, Price Execution and Price Performance Monitoring; also provide analytics support in areas such as Market Analysis, Customer Analysis, and MIS. Prior to joining GENPACT, he was Market Intelligence Manager at Bayer CropScience India, and Market Analyst at SCIL India.

 

He has an undergraduate degree in Science from University of Panjab, Chandigarh and and MBA from Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal.

 

He had achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in August 2010

Pramod Reddy Lakkady
GENPACT
Pramod Reddy Lakkady, CPP, is the Manager of Pricing Analytics team in GENAPCT Under his leadership in the pricing area, GENPACT has delivered various pricing development and improvement projects to various clients in the area of manufacturing and service industries. These projects delivered a significant improvement in the overall performance of pricing process and profitability of the clients. Current responsibilities include developing both strategic and tactical financial analysis devoted to deal management, pricing analytics, Revenue management, Parts pricing, Inventory Optimization and product mix optimization.

 

In collaboration with client teams, Pramod has developed easy to follow dashboards & scorecards that provide key metrics that are being utilized across the company to evaluate pricing effectiveness and efficiency. He extends strategic support as SME on several GENPACT cross-customer pricing initiative teams dedicated to improving pricing processes. During his 13 years of experience in the Manufacturing and Service industry, Pramod has served in a variety of roles, including Manager Financial Planning, Production Accounting Manager, Supply Chain Analyst, Manager Sourcing Analytics, and Manager Solution Development.

 

Pramod is a native of Hyderabad City, India and received a Bachelors degree in Commerce and Accounting from Kakatiya University and completed his Masters in Commerce and Business Management degree from the Kakatiya University. Additionally, he holds a Six Sigma Greenbelt certification..

 

He is a member of the Professional Pricing Society and achieved designation as a Certified Pricing Professional from the Professional Pricing Society in 2010.

Stephan Liozu
ARDEX Americas
Stephan Liozu is President & CEO of ARDEX Americas, a manufacturer of high performance and differentiated building products in the Pittsburgh area. In his current role, Stephan defines overall corporate pricing strategy and works closely with his Business Unit Managers in designing and implementing value-based and premium pricing programs. For the past nine years, Stephan has been a visiting Professor at Universities in Toulouse, France where he teaches International B2B Pricing Strategies to Master’s degree students.

 

Stephan is a native of France and has been a resident of the USA for 15 years. Fluent in English, French, and Spanish, he gained extensive international business and pricing experience working on three continents and living in six different countries. He has more than 15 years of professional experience in the industrial and building materials sectors.

 

Stephan Liozu holds an MBA in Marketing from Cleveland States University (1991), a European Master degree from Toulouse IAE School of Management in France with a major in Innovation Management (2005) and attended The General Management Program (TGMP) at Harvard Business School.

 

Stephan achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in Summer 2009.

Craig McGregor
Masco Cabinetry
Craig McGregor is Senior Pricing Analyst at Masco Cabinetry in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a position he’s held since 2008. His primary focus is on strategic product pricing, tactical price optimization, pricing analytics and implementation of strong pricing practices throughout the organization. His additional responsibilities have included promotion ROI analysis, international pricing and policy review, and dealer channel pricing program development. Currently, Craig is leading the pricing development of Masco Cabinetry’s national expansion of their DeNova countertop brand.

 

Prior to working for Masco Cabinetry, Craig spent eight years with Norfolk Homes of Ann Arbor, Michigan, a residential and commercial builder/developer. In his position as Purchasing Manager, Craig was responsible for the subcontractor management, optional feature pricing and special request pricing. He also led the implementation of the purchasing and sales modules of the company’s ERP system.

 

Craig has an undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and an MBA from Eastern Michigan University with an emphasis on Finance. Craig is a former licensed residential builder in the state of Michigan and previously earned the Certified Graduate Builder designation from the National Association of Home Builders.

 

He achieved his CPP designation from the Professional Pricing Society in the summer of 2010.

Bounena Ould Sidi M, CPP
LexisNexis
Bounena Ould Sidi M, CPP, is a global pricing analyst at LexisNexis, division of Reed Elsevier, and a leading provider of information and business solutions to professionals in a variety of industries- legal, risk solutions, corporate, government, law enforcement, accounting and academic.

 

Bounena provides quantitative and qualitative support on driving best practices through strategic product pricing, deal pricing and pricing analytics projects, within LexisNexis global pricing unit.

 

Bounena holds an MBA from Wright State University, and a Master in statistics from University of Lille 1, France. He Passed the CFA Level 1, and he‘s a candidate for Level 2.

 

Bounena achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in Winter 2010.

Bryan Pajer
AT&T Mobility
Bryan Pajer is a Marketing Manager in Mergers & Acquisitions with AT&T Mobility in Cleveland, Ohio. He has had extensive Pricing experience with both AT&T Mobility and Alltel Wireless.

 

Bryan achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in Winter 2010.

Heather Poulin
Ingram Micro Canada
Heather Poulin is the Pricing Manager for Ingram Micro Canada, part of the Ingram Micro family of companies, the largest global wholesale provider of technology products & supply chain management services. At Ingram Micro, Heather manages a team of Analysts whose mission it is to provide strategic pricing direction to key decision makers as well as managing the pricing process for a $2.5 Billion annual business in a highly competitive industry. Her team manages pricing for more than 400,000 products representing over 300 manufacturers to more than 10,000 customers in the technology channel. Heather has worked over the last three years to transform her team from a highly reactive and tactically focused organization to a more strategic, value and customer driven organization. She was also a key participant in a North American roll-out of Zilliant Price Optimization software.

 

Heather earned her Bachelor of Arts (BA) and Master of Business Administration (MBA) degrees at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. She resides with her family in Oakville, Ontario, Canada.

 

Heather achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in Winter 2010.

Andrew Peddicord
Consultant
Andrew Peddicord began his career as a design engineer for the Intel Corporation and later turned to business where he become a consultant applying analytics and structured methodologies to help clients find the strategic solutions needed to remain competitive. Business, like engineering, requires strong analysis and problem solving skills to make strategic tradeoffs. Nowhere could this be more true than in the area of pricing where Andrew leverages his broad skill set to find actionable opportunities for margin improvement.

 

As a consultant, Andrew has been privileged to work with pricing thought leaders on important projects that have re-defined the state of the art and set new standards of excellence. Andrew is known for his understanding of the theoretical support that pricing as a science enjoys but he can also descend from the 30,000 ft view to where the rubber meets the road and the hands-on execution actually takes place.

 

He holds a B.S.E.E. degree from The University of Arizona where he graduated Cum Laude and with Honors. He also holds an MBA (Global Business Strategies) from The University of North Carolina and a M.S. International Business Administration from ITESM. Andrew is bilingual and has been recognized for his language skills.

 

He also holds international academic credentials and has considerable international experience in Latin America working for Deloitte Consulting. In this setting he has held numerous leadership positions and become adept at handling difficult situations that require cultural sensitivities.

 

Andrew has worked on consulting projects involving pricing and revenue management, organizational change, process definition, business process modeling and CRM.

 

Andrew earned the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in the Spring of 2010.

Jouko Riihimäki
Greenback Analytics Oy
Jouko Riihimäki has been in working life for nearly 14 years doing various work tasks in several industries, especially retail, service and telecommunication industries.

 

In one of the biggest consulting companies, Capgemini, he worked as a managing consultant. Before moving to beverage industry, he used to be in charge of developing the Finance and Employee Transformation service line among other things.

 

During the time with the second largest beverage company in Finland, Hartwall, he was in charge of developing sales and financial operations. There we built a new planning process for sales, production and logistics (SO&P) and we implemented systems into it. As a project manager he was in charge of the development project of sales forecasting and planning. One of his roles he acted as supervisor for the Business Controllers and Sales Controlling team.

 

At the moment he works as an independent consultant and his special field is development of companies' processes, support operations, control systems and analyzing operations. He has altogether 10 years experience in management consulting in various fields of which retail trade is especially one of his strengths.

 

Jouko lives in Finland and received a Master of Science degree in Accounting from University of Tampere, Finland. He is a member of the Professional Pricing Society and achieved designation as a Certified Pricing Professional from the Professional Pricing Society in October 2009.

Abhijit Roy
GENPACT
Abhijit Roy has been working in the area of Pricing Analytics for Genpact and its global customers across industries like Aviation, Transportation, Power and Chemicals for the last 7 years. Abhijit manages a team of 40+ Analytical Professionals engaged in various activities of Marketing like Marketing Research, Quantitative Forecasting and Pricing.

 

Prior to joining Genpact, Abhijit spent 2 years in Automobile Major TATA Motors in their Manufacturing shop floor driving process improvements and Quality Assurance. Abhijit is Metallurgical Engineer from Jadavpur University with a Master’s in Business Administration from Department Of Management Studies in IIT-Delhi.

 

He achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in Fall 2010.

Avijit Saha
GENPACT
Avijit has been working in the area of Pricing Analytics for Genpact in the area of Aviation for last 2 years. Prior joining to Pricing analytics Avijit spent 2 years in the area of Competitive Analysis for Insurance Industry.

 

Avijit holds a Master’s in Business Administration degree as well as A Master’s in Commerce degree with specialization in Finance. He achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in fall 2010.

 

Alessandra Schause
Tyson Foods, Inc.
Alessandra Schause is a Pricing and Forecasting Manager for the International Export Division of Tyson Foods. She is responsible for ensuring price flow and compliance across the US value added exports, executing price analytics, reviewing product mix optimization, developing customer programs to achieve company’s goals and forecasting US exports volumes. In collaboration with the International Team, she helped to consolidate the most recent acquisition of Brazilian operations, now Tyson do Brazil.

 

She works with a multidisciplinary team on pricing strategies for all International Markets. She joined Tyson Foods in 2005 working as Associate Product Manager at the Refrigerated Value Added and then at the International divisions. She was responsible for new product development, preparing marketing strategies, analysis and processes that assisted in the sale and deployment of assets of a domestic operation.

 

She participated in developing and launching private label branded products across the domestic retail market and Tyson branded products in the international markets. Before joining Tyson Foods, she worked at Johnson & Johnson in a project to move operations from the USA to Brazil experiencing what is to work in a revolutionary economy.

 

Alessandra has an MBA from Vanderbilt University, USA; a M.S. with Specialization in Biotechnology from ITESM, Mexico and a Bachelor in Food Engineering from PUC-PR University, Brazil. She grew up in Brazil and spent seven years in Mexico before moving to the US.

 

She speaks fluently Portuguese, Spanish and English. Her interests include traveling, music and cultural programming.

 

She achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in January 2010.

Olivia Sengupta
GENPACT
Olivia is currently working as a Senior Consultant in GENPACT, leading the Marketing and Pricing analytics team. She supports the GE Healthcare Risk and Marketing team with Pricing analytics for the past 5 years. She has been instrumental in various business impact projects run across various GEHC Equipment businesses where she has developed price models, performed Price Elasticity analysis, price forecasting, Customer life time value analysis , created Price Value Maps, performed Market research projects as well as projects regarding customer segmentation, customer targeting and profitability analysis.She was also responsible for imprementation of Metreo pricing tool for GEHC diagnostic imaging business.She assists pricing leaders in GEHC in various leadership marketing reviews and has very strong understanding of the B2B business and healthcare industry.

 

Olivia is a Masters in Mathematics from IIT Kharagpur. She achieved the designation as a Certified Pricing Professional from the Professional Pricing Society in 2010.She is also a member of the Toastmasters club. In her spare time she loves traveling, music and reading.

 

She achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in Winter 2010.

Elena Sewalk
Sun Microsystems
Elena Sewak, CPP, was working for Sun Microsystems for four and a half years in the role of the Global Services Pricing Manager before Sun was acquired by Oracle Corporation.

 

At Sun Microsystems she was responsible for support services and pricing for Enterprise and Blade Servers, Storage Devices, Operating systems, and Networking products including SANs to ensure market competitive pricing was in place to improve profitability and service margins. Her team played an important role in the ERP system implementation, new Pricing Models set up, and conversion of pricing for six thousand service parts to support and preserve Support Services Revenue.

 

Elena completed her MS in Corporate Real Estate, Finance and Strategy from Cass Business School (City University, London) in the United Kingdom and MS/BS in Management from Market Relations Economics and Management Institiute from Ukraine.

 

She achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in Winter 2010.

Sam Shapiro
Channel Pricing Associates
Samuel Shapiro is a Management Consultant who develops strategy, pricing and programs for companies that sell through competing distribution channels, Sam is a strong believer that channel strategy without pricing is incomplete and vice versa. Sam views the pricing waterfall as a framework for compensation that links channel behavior, value for the customer and profitable growth. He works with clients to optimize price through each channel and develops criteria and rationale for differentiation.

 

Sam began his career as a principal in a distribution business where he evaluated hundreds of supplier discount structures, rebate programs and pricing from a distributor’s perspective. He left the channel and began consulting to some of the world’s leading high tech and business-to-business manufacturers in 1994.

 

Sam started Channel Pricing Associates in 2004 in order to help clients accelerate growth, manage conflict, increase margins and enhance customer satisfaction by focusing in this area. Sam earned both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Boston University.

 

He recently achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society to learn other perspectives on pricing and to gain a broader understanding about how channel pricing fits within the overall pricing space.

Shipra Singh
GENAPCT
Shipra Singh, CPP, is an Assistant Manager in Pricing Analytics team of GENAPCT. Transaction experience includes development of Pricing Decision Support Tool with visual representation of data analysis and results presentation through a user friendly front end to help sales team to decide upon the best price to quote. She has also developed Profit Optimization Model to calculate and compare price based on competition quotes and contribution margin. In the current role her primary focus is on scenario analysis, sensitivity analysis, strategic product pricing for deals and price trending.

 

She has also contributed her pricing and financial modeling expertise in growth play book exercises and strategies for new product introduction. She is also an active member of Pricing Competency Team at GENPACT. Shipra belongs to Delhi, India. She has done her masters in business finance (MBA – Finance) and holds a graduate degree in Bs. Physics Honors from Delhi University. She is also Lean and Six Sigma Greenbelt certified. Shipra has got a total work experience of 4.5 years. During this period apart from pricing she has also worked on financial modeling for Company Valuations, Strategic Business Market Intelligence, Benchmark Analysis, and Pitch Book preparation. Her favorite pastimes include traveling, reading, and spending time with family and friends.

 

She is a member of the Professional Pricing Society and achieved designation as a Certified Pricing Professional from the Professional Pricing Society in 2010.

Lixiang Tang (Sally Tang)
Emerson Network Power, China
Lixiang Tang is the General Manager of the Price Management Dept. of Greater China Market Unit (business including mainland China, HK and Taiwan) in Emerson Network Power, China. Emerson Network Power Co., Ltd. is the trusted supplier of the total network power products, solutions and services for global IT industry and telecom market.

 

Lixiang Tang has been with Emerson Network Power, China since 2002 and has taken on growing pricing management responsibilities. She started her pricing career as a service pricing analyst. She was then promoted to the leader of the service pricing team and later the GM of the Pricing Dept. to take the whole responsibilities of products and services pricing and price management business of Greater China Market, which covers an annual sales of 700 million USD of telecommunications and IT solution products and services.

 

Lixiang is keen on bringing the updated and innovative pricing strategies and ideas into pricing practices in China. Under her leadership in pricing management, Lixiang and her team have standardized various processes and systems to enable integrated performance, implemented vast scientific and practical models in pricing analysis and monitoring, and fostered targeted pricing initiatives to ensure a growing and profitable business all over Greater China.

 

Lixiang received a B.E degree and then achieved a Master Degree of Management from Renmin University in China. Now she is pursuing her MBA degree in University of Hongkong.

 

She has been involved in the Professional Pricing Society since 2006 and achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in Summer 2010.

William Thomas
Life Technologies
William Thomas is the Operation Manager for a strategic sales channel at Life Technologies, a $3B biotechnology tools company. William is responsible for managing discounts, contract, and freight margin optimization as well as Category Management for the channel. Previously, he was the Global Pricing Analyst for the Pricing and Global Commercialization Operations team where he delveloped new tools focusing on revenue analysis, price tracking and updating, channel/account segmentation, sales opportunity identification, competitive pricing, product elasticity analysis, and promotion effectiveness tracking.

 

William has extensive exposure in various business functions. Prior to joining Life in 2008, William had been Manager of Businees Intelligence for Callaway Golf where he provided management with sales reporting, demand forecasting, and sales opportunity tools. Previous to that, William was General Manager at Vespa of California where he led sales and marketing of the #1 territory in the U.S. for the leading motor scooter company in the world. He also has worked as Senior Content Manager for StoreRunner.com, an online shopping portal, and as a staff accountant for PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP.

 

William is a M.B.A. in Strategy and Marketing from the Marshall School of Business at USC and the London Busisness School. William earned his B.A. in Business Economics from UCLA. In addition to attaining the Certified Pricing Professional (CPP) designation, he is also a JDA Certified Space Planner.

Linda Trevenen
Philips Respironics
Linda Trevenen is the Director of Marketing Excellence Programs for Philips Respironics. The company is >$1 Billion and operates in 131 countries focused on global sleep and home respiratory markets. Linda is leading its transformation from a product/technology mindset to a market-driving mindset utilizing best practices and processes that elevate marketing competencies.

 

She has delivered top and bottom-line results by embedding value pricing and segmentation best practices. Prior to this recent role, Linda held the role of Director of Global Product Marketing focused on delivering solutions for the sleep marketplace. Before joining Respironics, Linda has led marketing organizations focused in medical device, i.e., Allergan, Johnson & Johnson, Dentsply.

Shane Tullis
Roche Diagnostics
Shane A. Tullis, CPP, has 10 years experience in the insurance and healthcare industries. He is currently employed at Roche Diagnostics in Indianapolis, Indiana, as a Senior Pricing Analyst in its Point of Care division. Shane is responsible for many pricing functions at Roche Diagnostics including pricing strategies and tactics with individual hospitals as well as major Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs). He also works on sales promotions, new product pricing programs, and individual contract approval. He has been at Roche close to 3 years in Pricing. Prior to that Shane worked as an actuary and metrics manager in the insurance industry.

 

Shane’s education includes a B.S. in Actuarial Science and a M.B.A. with a concentration in Finance – both from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. He achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in January 2010.

Sid Turner
CenturyLink
Sid Turner, CPP, is a Strategic Pricing Manager for CenturyLink, a Fortune 500 company and a leading provider of communications, high-speed internet and entertainment services to residential and business customers in thirty-three states. During his nineteen-year tenure with the company, Sid has served in a variety of positions, including Billing Manager, Product Manager, Account Manager and Project Manager. His current role as a Strategic Pricing Manager includes the pricing of voice product offerings to business customer segment.

 

As a Strategic Pricing Manager, Sid is responsible for ensuring price optimization. This includes performing price elasticity analysis, monitoring competitive analysis and presenting pricing recommendations to executive management for approval. In 2008, these voice products accounted for more than $950M in revenue.

 

Sid received his BS degree in Accounting from East Carolina University in 1989 and his M.B.A. from University of Missouri, Kansas City in 2007. He completed his Certification of Project Management from George Washington University in 2005.

 

He achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in June 2009.

Mark Walsh
AREDEX Americas
Mark Walsh, has been an employee of Ardex Americas for 15 years. He is currently the Divisional Manager for the Eastern Division of the United States and Canada.

 

He has held several key positions including Sales Professional in, Maryland and Northern Florida, Sales Manager, Southwest Region, Country of Mexico, Central America, and Northeast region. Current responsibilities include the mentoring and training of sales managers and representatives, creating and implementing company strategy and initiatives, and delivering sales budgets.

 

Mark is originally from New Jersey and a graduate from the University of Maryland, College Park where he was a four letter winner in football.

Samantha Weiss
Kimberly- Clark Professional
Samantha Weiss, CPP, is the Associate Director of Pricing Strategy for Kimberly- Clark Professional in Roswell, GA. She is responsible for developing customer segmentation pricing strategies, leading pricing process improvements and implementing value-based pricing strategies for the B2B division of Kimberly- Clark.

 

Prior to joining Kimberly-Clark, Samantha managed pricing for Intuit’s Small Business Payroll division and has held various positions in pricing and risk management at General Electric. Samantha is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt and graduate of GE’s Risk Management Program. Samantha holds an MBA from University of Florida and a Bachelor’s of Commerce from Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada.

 

She achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in Fall 2009.

Corey White
Roche Diagnostics
Corey L. White, CPP, has over 15 years of experience in financial analysis. He is currently employed at Roche Diagnostics in Indianapolis, Indiana, as a Senior Pricing Analyst in the Professional Diagnostics – Physician Office Laboratory division. Corey is responsible for implementing distribution channel pricing covering Coagulation, Urinalysis, and Chemistry product portfolios. He also works on contract profitability, approval, and compliance. He has been at Roche for 3 years in Pricing. Prior to that, Corey worked as a business retention coordinator in life insurance and as an investment accountant in the banking industry.

 

Corey’s education includes a B.S. in Accounting from Indiana University and an M.B.A. from Anderson University. He achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in September 2010.

Bryan Willnerd
CenturyLink
Bryan Willnerd works for CenturyLink (formerly EMBARQ,) working as a Pricing Manager responsible for pricing emerging products within the Business Markets group.

 

Bryan is in his 10th year with the company and has held a variety of responsibilities including Accounting, Finance and Marketing positions. Bryan has a B.S. in Business Administration with an emphasis in Accounting from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

 

Bryan achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in Summer 2009.

Doris Yip
CenturyLink
Doris Yip is an innovative and result-oriented finance and marketing leader with more than 14 years of demonstrated experience in pricing and marketing management, finance decision support, strategic planning, treasury management and corporate finance.

 

Doris has been instrumental in helping companies understand the key drivers to make strategic financial decisions and drive continual process improvement to significantly improve return on investment. She is known for her ability to “connect the dots”, to clearly explain complex concepts, to develop partnerships with key strategic thinkers and to quickly establish trust among senior executives.

 

Currently, Doris is leading the pricing strategy, pricing analytics and new product launches for the $2.7 billion Consumer Market division at EMBARQ, a Fortune 300 telecommunications company. She has been with EMBARQ/Sprint for 10 years and won numerous excellence awards. Prior to joining EMBARQ, Doris worked at H&R Block as the treasury analysis manager for four years. She was the single point of contact for all high-profile analyses initiated by senior management. Her responsibilities included long-range strategic planning, risk position assessment, capital allocation optimization, mergers and acquisitions, investor relations and rating agency support.

 

Doris holds an MBA with an emphasis in finance and international business from Rockhurst University in Missouri and a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Kansas.

 

She achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation from the Professional Pricing Society in the summer of 2009.

Brian Yobst
Eastman Chemical Company
Brian A. Yobst, CPP, is the Global Pricing Manager for OXO Products at Eastman Chemical Company. In this role, Brian has responsibility for global pricing as well as sales contract development since 2006. With primary focus on delivering business objectives, he has led many areas of improvement within pricing strategy and tactical execution. Prior to involvement in pricing, Brian served in manufacturing supervision since joining Eastman Chemical Company in 2001.

 

Brian is a native of Pittsburgh, PA where he received a BS degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh in 1992 and also is a licensed Professional Engineer in the State of Pennsylvania since 1997. Brian has been involved in the Professional Pricing Society since 2006 and achieved the Certified Pricing Professional designation in December 2009.