Speaker Profiles

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We have an impressive line up of speakers at PeSA 2010. Read below for some more information about them and their expertise.

Tom O'Toole - The Beechworth Baker (Expert Motivational Speaker )

Tom O’Toole is the charismatic and inspirational ‘Baker from Beechworth’. From a poorly performing regional bakery, O’Toole has built his business into one of Australia’s greatest success stories.

In his presentation, Tom O'Toole shares his story with the audience, telling how he took a bakery in a small dying isolated country town with a population of 3,000 people to a thriving business. From a staff of two and an annual turnover of $100,000, O’Toole now employs 70 full and part timers and has an annual turnover in excess of $4 million. The bakery serves well over 900,000 customers per year and its reinvigoration has seen the revival of an entire community.

Business model

Tom O’Toole’s business model is being emulated around the world. His Beechworth Bakery has become the highest earning single bakery retailer in Australia, and is a winner of national and state Marketing & Business Awards.

Formal education

Formal education is not Tom O’Toole’s secret of success. A self-confessed kindergarten drop out, he was poorly educated as a child and had an impoverished childhood. He has experienced the lowest of lows, but is now a beaming icon of an entire industry – educated through practical application of his instinctive business skill and acumen. Tom O’Toole is one of a kind, and all Australians who own a business owe it to themselves to get a dose of his insights.

Peter Thurin - Blackbelt in Excellence( Expert Motivational Speaker )

Over the past 25 years, Peter Thurin has developed a high level of business expertise and through his many outstanding sporting accomplishments, has developed a keen insight into what focuses, motivates and inspires people to achieve their best.

While grounded in the fundamentals of business and life development, Peter’s enthusiastic, humorous and engaging style brings to life the key messages of every blackbelt in excellence session.

Over more than 20 years as a successful businessman and Melbourne pharmacist, Peter has put into practice the very principles he now espouses, to grow and develop his own employees and businesses.

As a former international Australian tennis representative, coach and administrator of one of Australia’s largest junior AFL club, and 3rd Dan Blackbelt in the martial art of Taekwondo, Peter has learnt the true meaning of focus, discipline and motivation. Just as importantly, Peter has built a happy and successful family life with his wife Sharon and their three growing children, Jamie, Melanie and Matthew, all of whom are embracing the concepts of excellence and balance in their young lives.

Driven by his belief in the importance of continuing personal growth and development, at the age of 36 Peter set himself a goal to learn the martial art of Taekwondo and achieve his Blackbelt before his 40th birthday.

Through dedication and commitment, Peter achieved his goal, often through necessity training at 4am. Peter continues to train today and in just a few short years has achieved the rare and highly respected level of 3rd Dan Blackbelt.

Since developing the blackbelt in excellence program, Peter Thurin has worked extensively both in Australia and Internationally and has undertaken key workshop facilitation and MC roles, and delivered many successful keynote and motivational presentations within leading organisations such as KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Telstra, Faulding, Isuzu-General Motors, Lend Lease, Orange, Toyota, Sigma Pharmaceuticals, Fauldings, Optus, Colonial, AMP, Flight Centre, Apple, Nissan, Kodak, Quiksilver, Arnotts, McDonald’s and many others.

Ahmed Fahour

Ahmed Fahour
Managing Director and CEO - Australia Post

Ahmed Fahour has broad experience as a senior executive within the finance and banking industries in Australia and overseas. He was appointed Managing Director and CEO of Australia Post in February 2010, following successful stints as CEO at Citigroup (Australia and New Zealand); National Australia Bank (Australia); and Gulf Finance Group (Bahrain). Ahmed is a senior fellow of the Financial Services Institute of Australia. He is also the chairman of the Rip Curl Group, a director of Australian air Express, Star Track Express and Sai Cheng Logistics.

Deborah Sharkey

Deborah Sharkey
Managing Director, eBay Australia & New Zealand

Deborah Sharkey has been Managing Director, eBay Australia & New Zealand Pty Ltd since December 2008.
As Managing Director, Deborah has led the local team through a number of innovations such as the creation of a stores pricing strategy for business sellers, a nationwide business development team and the Big Deal – daily marketing of products available on eBay.com.au at heavily discounted prices.
Before joining eBay in 2003, Deborah spent four years establishing and managing the Asia Pacific internet media arm of MindShare, a WPP-owned media agency, in Tokyo and Sydney. She also worked for Discovery Communications in the US. Deborah has a BA in Foreign Affairs and Asian Studies from the University of Virginia.

Todd Alexander

Todd Alexander
Director, Seller Strategy, eBay Australia & New Zealand
Todd Alexander has worked at eBay for over eight years and is the author of two books: How to Use eBay & PayPal and How to Make Money on eBay. He is currently the Director of Seller Strategy and has spent the majority of his time at eBay helping Australian sellers grow their business on the site. In the past, Todd has also been responsible for category development, buyer experience and onsite search. His eBay feedback is over 1000 and is 100% positive

Brian Cottrell
Business Development Manager, eBay Australia & New Zealand
Having worked with eBay’s top US sellers for nearly four years, Brian is now working with Australia’s largest online sellers. Brian is a Power Seller on eBay.com and is a passionate believer in the eBay model for both businesses and individuals, large and small.

Deric Gregorio

Deric Gregorio
Product Manager, eBay Australia & New Zealand
With a passion for the internet and technology, Deric joined eBay in 2007 as a Quality Assurance Manager. In charge of managing and resolving eBay Australia’s high impact site issues, Deric developed a growing knowledge of the various components which make up the eBay website. In 2009, Deric took on the extra responsibility of working as an eBay Product Manager. The role focuses on working with different parts of the business such as developers, quality assurance and customer service to help build and maintain products such as the ‘Sell Your Item’ form, Turbo Lister and Selling Manager.

Jacob Henrich

Jacob Henrich
Business Development Manager, eBay Australia & New Zealand

Jacob Henrich has been with eBay since 2007 where he managed eBay’s top US sellers with a special emphasis on trading assistance. In 2009 he transferred to the Australian site as a Top Seller Account Manager in the media and home categories. In his current role Jacob looks after Australia’s top sellers as a Business Development Manager. Prior to eBay Jacob worked as a graphic designer and marketing research consultant. Jacob graduated from Arizona State University with a degree in marketing.

John Lawson (USA) - Social Networking Tools

Founder and CEO of online urban clothing store 3rd Power Outlet and author of business blog ColderICE.com. eBay Platinum PowerSeller and eBay Certified Education Specialist (US).

One of the outstanding speakers from the 2009 PeSA Summit and back by popular demand.

Some unsolicited feedback about John's presentation last year:

'I think the best part [of the summit] is John Lawson's presentation'

'He was confident, engaging, relevant, entertaining, concise and above all else a true visionary! Whoever booked him - stroke of genius'

'A visionary'

'John Lawson was special'

'John's message regarding the social network working for you was fascinating and invaluable'

'He gave a lot of inspiration'

'full of great information and also very entertaining'

Nicolette Maury
Head of Buyer & Trust, eBay Australia & New Zealand
Nicolette Maury comes from a strategy background and has been at eBay for four and a half years. In that time, she’s worked on improving the experience of high value sellers (including setting up the first eBay top seller event in Sydney in 2006), developing strategies to acquire and scale business sellers, analysing categories and formats to grow on eBay, benchmarking eBay’s user experience within eCommerce, and seeking strategic partners who add value to the buyer and seller experiences on eBay. Nicolette currently leads the Buyer Experience team which focuses on winning buyer loyalty by maximising confidence in the eBay shopping experience.

Sandeep Gondekar

Product Manager, eBay Australia & New Zealand

Sandeep Gondekar is a Product Manager for eBay Australia & New Zealand and has worked for the company for over seven years. As a Product Manager, Sandeep is responsible for new feature launches on the eBay site, as well as specifically focusing on the search, finding and classification sections of eBay.com.au. Sandeep also works as part of the wider international business and technology teams to help develop and launch new features, ensuring that eBay’s community of passionate sellers and buyers have a great experience on the site.

Ben Watts

National Logistics Manager, Cellnet Group

Ben Watts, has created a career in operations and logistics, he has a passion for efficient, cost effective logistics.
Through out his career Ben has worked in a variety of senior logistics and operational management roles across the pharmaceutical, information technology, consumer electronic and telecommunications industries. A common theme of all roles has been supply chain efficiency and increasing the speed of goods to market, while reducing the associated operational costs.

Chris Dobson

Managing Director of Exalt Group

Exalt Group is a specialist provider of customised fully integrated Logistics solutions spanning 3rd Party Warehousing, Freight & Distribution, Kitting, Assembly and associated services. Exalt specialises in services to online sellers, eBay sellers, new and start-up businesses and is recognised the leading provider in these areas.

Carl Hartmann

Managing Director of Temando

As founder and managing director of Temando, Carl aims to use aggregation technology to help overcome the everyday market problem of sending goods in e-commerce environments. He has extensive expertise in e-commerce, fulfilment & logistics, digital strategy and online dynamics. With an initial background in consumer-goods retail, and over 10 years' experience working in senior digital media roles following that, Carl has developed immense knowledge of the digital environment. He further holds a Bachelor of Business Management (Marketing) and a Bachelor of Arts (Psychology and International Relations) from the University of Queensland. It is foundations in these areas that have allowed him to become a thought leader in e-commerce fulfilment.

Tony Johnson

Director of My Online Business

Tony Johnson started selling on eBay 6 years ago and quickly realised that there were far too many manual processes that could be automated, so with over 20 years IT experience, he decided to develop an application that did it all for him. At the 2008 PeSA summit he was approached by other sellers who were interested in using his software, so with the opportunity to help others, Tony redeveloped his solution and launched it in Sydney at the 2009 PeSA Summit with overwhelming success. Tony now supports many successful online companies and has seen an increase in all his clients’ revenue since they started using the software.

Mark Gray

Managing Director, ChannelAdvisor Australia/Asia Pacific
As Managing Director, Mark is responsible for ChannelAdvisor's Australian/Asia Pacific business unit which comprises mainly of sales, marketing and client service operations for the ChannelAdvisor Complete technology platform. Mark joined ChannelAdvisor in August 2005 in London, UK and managed some of ChannelAdvisor’s largest customers out of their HQ in Raleigh, NC, USA.

Prior to ChannelAdvisor, Mark was a Lieutenant in the U.S. Coast Guard and also ran his own eBay business as a rated PowerSeller. Mark received a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) degree from St. Mary’s College of California in 2005 and graduated from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in 2004.

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