2019 Speaker Lineup

Suzanne Abbot is Senior Director of Brand Activation at WestRock.

Susan Bell is the Global Vice President of Strategy, Business Development and M&A for the Product Care division. Product Care has annual global sales in excess of $1.6 billion, driven by an industry-leading portfolio of packaging innovations designed to resolve the demanding challenges of moving products through complex and evolving global supply chains.

Susan is responsible for leading the global team which is charged with creating the divisional strategy, catalyzing and executing mergers and acquisitions, developing new business, generating customer and market intelligence and to ensure the division outperforms the market. Susan brings to Sealed Air more than 20 years of global marketing and sales experience in strategy, business development, and global account leadership across consumer and industrial markets.  

Prior to assuming this Strategic leadership role in 2016, Susan was most recently with Sonoco where she held progressively expanding roles, including Global Corporate Customer Director for 3M where she drove global sales expansion, and M&A Manager where she developed the market segmentation strategy and led the largest accretive acquisition in Sonoco history. Prior to Sonoco Susan held various global marketing and commercial leadership roles at Stanley-Black & Decker, Ingersoll Rand and Newell-Rubbermaid.

Susan attended Emory University as a double major in Chemistry and Biology and Georgia State University, where she earned a BBA in Marketing, and a minor in Advertising.

Susan has been awarded three US patents (08329268, 8329268 B2 and 2351444 A1) for innovative products. She believes that people are a company’s greatest asset and that lifetime learning is the key to success. Susan belongs to the National Organization of Women and is a founding member of the Anne Springs Close Greenway Ladies Guild where she currently serves on the Development Committee and Sponsorship Chairperson.

Susan and her husband Brian enjoy living in Fort Mill, SC where they enjoy discovering life with their two children, Morgan and Aaron and own a family Educational Services business.

Kerri Clark is Director, Global Technology Innovation, Packaging at Modelez International.

Peter Conroy III is Senior Director, E-Commerce & Differentiated Services at WestRock

Melissa Dandy is Associate Director of R&D E-Commerce & New Business Models at Johnson & Johnson.

Joe Fernandez is Senior Packaging Engineer at Vera Bradley.

Rachel Gibbons is Global Business Director, Adhesive Coated Solutions at H.B. Fuller

Stephen Harrod is responsible for a range of Smithers Pira reports including the Global Corrugated Market, the Global Folding Carton Market, Central and Eastern European markets for corrugated and folding carton, Packaging in the Middle East, Retail Ready Packaging, Luxury Paperboard Packaging, Liquid Packaging Board and many others, including Sustainable Insulation. He has contributed to the Smithers Pira reports on the Global Packaging Market and the Global Printing Market, whilst also building in-house databases on the global paper and packaging markets.

Born in the UK, educated in Rhodesia and South Africa, Stephen spent eleven years building a market research company in South Africa, focussed on the paper and packaging industry in that country. He left this business and spent six years in the paper industry with Mondi and JAC Labels before relocating to England. Following a spell as a freelance marketing consultant, he has been authoring reports for Smithers Pira since 2006, with a focus on global paper and packaging markets.

Jonathan Jarman is Marketing Manager, eCommerce at Amcor Rigid Plastics.

Anne is a Principal and Vice President at RRS where she co- leads the Corporate Sustainability Practice.  Anne joined RRS in 2012 from the non-profit, GreenBlue, where she was the Director of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition for 8 years. Previously, she was at the design consultancy of William McDonough and Michael Braungart and focused on cradle-to-cradle product design. Recognized for her understanding of applied life cycle thinking and knowledge leadership in packaging and recovery, she is an advisor to numerous companies and trade groups. She writes extensively on design and recovery issues and their role in building a Circular Economy.

She has more than twenty years of multi-disciplinary experience in bringing together management consulting and resource management. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Brent Lindberg is annoying, and he knows it. It’s more than just the corny jokes and odd quirks. With a curiosity that rivals George, Brent has the habit of relentlessly asking questions like a 5-year-old. He also has an obnoxious appetite for the unexpected (as anyone who’s seen his wardrobe can tell you). 

Together these traits produce an unorthodox approach to structural packaging design which has built a culture at Fuseneo, the creative studio he started. And somehow, it seems to be working. Their incessant inquisition and boundary-pushing has been reshaping packaging experiences across retail and e-commerce for more than a decade.  

Rian Mabry is the Director of Procurement-Packaging for HelloFresh. HelloFresh is a meal-kit delivery company focusing on delivering fresh food to customer around the world. Rian came to HelloFresh to focus on driving innovation in the meal delivery industry. Through continued sustainability and food safety of packaging materials. Rian has a strong desire to see the meal-kit industry drive changes into how e-commerce packaging is perceived.

Rian is a graduate of Michigan State University School of Packaging. Since completing his education he has worked in Pharmaceuticals, Confections and Beverage industry focusing on packaging innovation and productivity.

Ms. Maes joined global packaging leader, Amcor, in November 2016. Previously, she held a number of senior strategy roles including with leading international management-consulting firm, McKinsey and Company.

Today, as Amcor’s Vice President, Corporate Strategy, Ms. Maes identifies strategic opportunities for the company; assessing acquisitions and developing growth strategies for the business, worldwide. This includes leading Amcor’s expanding ecommerce offering.

Prior to Amcor, Ms. Maes ran transformations, restructures, and merger integrations for several global clients of McKinsey in the chemical, agricultural and insurance sectors. 

She was previously a private equity associate at Terra Firma Capital Partners and a financial analyst in investment banking at Morgan Stanley.

Ms. Maes has a Masters, Business Administration, from Harvard Business School, a Masters, Financial Management, and a Masters, Applied Economics.

Rodney Manzo is the founder and CEO at Anvyl Inc., a technology that is focused on digitizing supply chain from procurement to delivery.

Rodney is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and served as an Engineer Officer in the US Army.  During tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, he conducted route clearance and global operations missions. Rodney is a graduate of the Army Ranger and Sapper schools and earned a Bronze Star during his deployments.

Following his time in the Army, Rodney worked as a consultant at Booz Allen on multiple engagements before joining Apple as a Global Supply Manager and then transitioning to Harry’s Inc, to lead their Global Supply Chain group.

Rodney graduated from the USMA with a BS in Business/System Engineering and he has an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Niall Murphy is Co-founder & CEO of EVRYTHNG, the internet of things platform for consumer products. EVRYTHNG has been named as Technology Pioneer 2018 by the World Economic Forum. A technologist, serial-entrepreneur, and angel investor, Niall has 25 years experience in innovation and future-thinking. He has founded and built pioneering businesses in internet infrastructure, the mobile internet and Web services. Niall is a frequent speaker at venues around the world, including TED.

Sneha is an established packaging professional in the FMCG industry who has developed a reputation for adapting to the rapidly evolving & competitive packaging marketplace. She took the road less traveled as her education began in the natural sciences & she let her strengths & passion guide her to Packaging. Sneha has taken both innovate & unconventional approaches towards packaging from an ecologically friendly & sustainable perspective to drive various initiatives.  These qualities naturally led her to the eCommerce space where she is now leading eCommerce packaging initiatives for a Global Consumer Beauty Division at a large CPG.

Jonathan Quinn is Market Development Manager at Nova Chemicals

Ben currently holds the role of Packaging Engineering Manager supporting the eCommerce Business Unit for Reckitt Benckiser's Hygiene Home division, which covers brands like Lysol, Air Wick, and Finish. Ben is a graduate of the Packaging Science program at Clemson University and accepted an Associate Packaging Engineer position with Reckitt Benckiser in January of 2008.  He initially supported their factory in Brandon, MS for three years and their factory in St. Peters, MO for a further few years, before accepting a role at RB's North American HQ in Parsippany, NJ in 2014, where he holds his current position. 

In his time, Ben has supported packaging development for brands such as Lysol, Air Wick, Finish, Resolve, Woolite, d-Con, Rid-X, and others.  He has supported development from primary packaging up to club pallet packaging (Costco, Sam's, BJ's) as well as custom displays and other POP vehicles.  Over the last couple of years, his responsibilities have included supporting the eBU (eComm Business Unit) end to end team from a packaging POV to ensure that strategies in that area are optimized for the unique challenges of the e-com supply network.  Ben also manages a small team of packaging engineers that support all custom manufacturing operations for North America.

Graduate of the University of Southern California. Started as a sample maker at Bay Cities while attending college. Became a Salesperson and rose to the President’s position in 1995. Became CEO shortly thereafter and named Chairman in 2002. Served as Chairman of the Association of Independent Corrugated Convertors in 2014/2015. Serves as Board of Director member of the AICC, International Corrugated Packaging Foundation, and Fiber Box Association. Advisory Board member of California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo CA. Member of Vistage International.

Liz Walsh is Director of Customer Insights, Packaging at Georgia-Pacific.