Trends/Analysis

Dan Sands Visit Author's Page

Dan Sands is regional director, EMEA at Zitcha. Previously EMEA sales director at the business, Dan has played a pivotal role in growing Zitcha's UK business and in his new role, he will act as the figurehead for the business across the region. Prior to joining Zitcha, Dan held senior positions at retail media businesses including FireWork and CitrusAd.

Leon Dixon Visit Author's Page

Leon Dixon, an Oliver Wight business advisor, is a consultant, coach, and educator providing companies with guidance on the design and implementation of integrated business processes and systems.

“I believe that human judgment and great processes drive business success. Technology must support our decision making, but cannot make decisions for us. My passion is guiding better decision making and leading companies to profitable, sustainable growth, while improving our work environment. Working with Oliver Wight allows me to live this calling daily.”

Throughout Leon’s 35+-year career, Leon has been a leader, coach, and implementor of improved business behaviors, planning processes, and software. A cornerstone of his work includes ensuring that the net financial result of a project returns a multiple of the money and time planned to justify it.

Leon held various leadership and management positions at BASF, AGA, and SAP, and had an interesting role at SmartOps, a startup then acquired by SAP. Leon’s consulting work has continued to drive dramatic process improvements through his partnerships with companies including Arkema/Altuglas, Dow, General Mills, Otterbox, Huntsman, Xerox, and over a dozen others.

Leon’s philosophy about process improvements returning a multiple of their investment began with his shop floor experience and work as a sales engineer for AGA Gas, Inc. As his career developed, Leon took that philosophy to management and leadership roles in marketing, product management, COE and international supply chain leadership with BASF, concurrently earning his MBA. He then served as a supply chain consultant and held international solution ownership and software implementation roles for SAP’s IBP, supply chain planning and inventory optimization software. He is also a noted supply chain planning speaker in webinars, industry meetings, and educational events.

Leon earned his engineering degree from Michigan State and MBA from Keller School of Management. He also earned his Certified in Production and Inventory Management (CPIM) from APICS. He resides with his family in Pittsburgh, PA.

Sarah CasconeVisit Author's Page

Sarah Cascone is chief marketing officer at Appriss Retail. She oversees creative and product marketing efforts for the company, highlighting how the world’s largest omnichannel retailers can reduce returns and fraud through Appriss Retail’s AI-powered solutions. She has more than 15 years of experience in marketing and previously helped scale Bluecore, a martech firm in enterprise retail, from $1 million to nearly $100 million in ARR.

Dietmar GuheVisit Author's Page

Dr. Dietmar Guhe has served as vice president of innovation and research at Arvato since 2025.

He studied Mathematics and Physics at Bielefeld University, where he also earned his PhD in 2001. He began his career at Arvato as a Technical Project Manager and, in parallel, went on to lead the Mathematics Computing Center at Paderborn University. He has held various leadership roles in corporate technologies, development, as well as IT architecture and infrastructure management.

From 2019 to 2021, he joined Accenture as a Cloud Advisory Innovation Principal Director, where he also led the Quantum Computing group for the DACH region.

In 2021, Dr. Guhe returned to Arvato, where in his current position he focuses on driving technological advancement at Arvato, combining extensive operational IT experience with a strong emphasis on innovation. His work centers on translating emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, into scalable and practical solutions for complex supply chain environments. In doing so, he operates at the intersection of IT and operations.

Stu SjouwermanVisit Author's Page

Stu Sjouwerman is co-founder and CEO of ReadingMinds.ai, a pioneering AI-moderated interview platform for conducting sentiment analysis. He also is the founder and executive chairman of KnowBe4, the world's largest cybersecurity platform that addresses human risk management. Sjouwerman is author of "Agent Powered Growth: Deploy AI Agents that Build your Marketing Pipeline 24/7" [Wiley 2026], which achieved national bestseller status, debuting at #17 on USA Today's Bestselling Book List within two weeks of its release. A serial entrepreneur with decades in the IT industry, Stu was co-founder of Sunbelt Software, an award-winning anti-malware software company acquired in 2010.

James DressingVisit Author's Page

James Dressing is CEO of Motimatic, where he leads the company’s mission to turn consumer intent into measurable action through data-driven, behaviorally informed marketing. He brings deep expertise in performance marketing and growth strategy, helping organizations improve acquisition, conversion and retention.

Previously, James was founder and CEO of KLIK, a performance marketing agency recognized by Adweek as one of the fastest-growing globally. He has also held senior marketing roles in the education technology sector, managing large-scale digital investments and driving revenue growth.

James was named a “40 Under 40” honoree and holds a degree in business administration from James Madison University.

Frank VellaVisit Author's Page

Frank Vella is the CEO of Constant Contact, a small-business-focused digital marketing and CRM platform that has helped millions of small businesses and nonprofits. Constant Contact delivers everything small businesses and nonprofits need to build, grow and succeed. With powerful online marketing tools, CRM and sales features and innovative AI capabilities, Constant Contact makes it easy to attract the right people, engage more customers, close more deals and grow. Frank’s previous successes are rooted in a passion for building customer-centric businesses and teams at tech firms of varying sizes, including Microsoft, GE Capital, Virtustream and BlueJeans.

Daniel GabayVisit Author's Page

Daniel Gabay is co-founder and CEO of Trigo, a computer vision leader offering retailers full-store, full product journey loss prevention to ensure items picked up from store shelves are scanned at checkout. Daniel co-founded Trigo in 2018 and led the development of the company’s core AI platform before stepping into the CEO role to scale deployments across major retail chains worldwide. Under his leadership, Trigo has evolved from autonomous store innovation into a multi-layer, real-time loss prevention platform. Daniel has been recognized on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and is an authority on the future of Physical AI, retail automation, and privacy-safe computer vision at scale. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

Derek PerryVisit Author's Page

Derek Perry is Sparq’s chief technology officer, focused on guiding the company’s technology strategy, solution development and our AI-accelerated ways of working. His career has focused on applied problem solving in consulting and driving speed-to-value for clients in mission critical domains. Over his more than 13 years at Sparq, he has overseen the company’s innovation and AI functions, and enjoys spending time in the field helping organizations adopt AI.

Nicole BrackettVisit Author's Page

Nicole Brackett is an accomplished sales leader with extensive experience across North American and European markets in procurement, supply chain, and SaaS. Known for driving revenue growth and building high-performing teams, she's earned the 2023 Stevie Award and the 2022 President's Club Award. Nicole holds an MBA from VCU and a BS from Virginia Tech.