Charles-Etienne Bost currently serves as a Partner and the Head of Consumer Goods, Retail and Luxury Business Europe for Kearney, a leading global management consulting firm with more than 5,300 people working in more than 40 countries. Kearney works with more than three quarters of the Fortune Global 500, as well as with the most influential governmental and nonprofit organizations. Bost was made a Partner at Kearney in March 2021. Previously, he served as Chief Financial Officer of Global Supply for Coty for nearly two years, and as Senior Vice President of Integration and Transformation for Coty for nearly three years. This is not Bost’s first stint with Kearney. From 2004 to 2016, he worked his way up from business analyst to partner at the firm, which was then known as A.T. Kearney. Bost earned a master’s degree in sciences from the École des Ponts ParisTech and a master’s degree in finance from Université Paris Nanterre.

Frédéric Thomas-Dupuis is a Partner and Head of the Americas Retail and Consumer Goods Practice at Oliver Wyman, a global leader in management consulting and a business unit of Marsh McLennan. In his role, Thomas-Dupuis focuses on large-scale transformations and value creation, both of which are often supported by deploying advanced decision support tools and analytics. Additionally, he manages the firm’s Montreal offices. Founded in 1984, Oliver Wyman is a respected management consulting firm formed by former Booz Allen Hamilton partners Alex Oliver and Bill Wyman. The company employs more than 5,000 professionals, with offices in more than 70 cities across 30 countries. Thomas-Dupuis joined Oliver Wyman in 2004, working as a Recruiting Partner for the firm’s Canada practice before becoming a Partner in the retail practice. In his career, he has led major transformations of retail companies in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. He is fluent in French and English and holds a Master of Engineering and Bachelor of Engineering from McGill University.

Fulvio Manente currently serves as Global Solutions Vice President for Retail for Softtek, a global leader in next-generation digital solutions. Softtek was the first company to introduce the Nearshore model, and it currently helps Global 2000 organizations build their digital capabilities constantly and seamlessly, from ideation and development to execution and evolution. Its entrepreneurial drive spans 20+ countries and more than 15,000 talented professionals. Manente is an experienced IT professional who has worked for more than 25 years for large companies in Brazil, Mexico, and the U.S. He has solid expertise on strategic planning, innovation road-maps, and national and multinational project and program management, and deep knowledge on mobile development platforms, the best use of cloud services, and the launching of mobile apps and e-commerce platforms. Prior to Softtek, Manente served as Head of Innovation and Market Intelligence for Estapar, Senior Manager for Walmart Latin America, and as a Team Leader for both Sprint and IBM. He earned a master’s degree in artificial intelligence and machine learning from the University of Texas at Austin, a master’s degree in finance and financial management services from Faculdade Ítalo Brasileiro, and a bachelor’s degree in information technology from Centro Superior de Formação Tecnológica Carlos Drummond de Andrade.

As Lead Partner for Global Client Growth, Greg Portell’s goal is to help all sectors of Kearney’s practices be in the best position, structurally and in terms of resources, to address the fast-moving changes and disruptions challenging the firm’s clients and the markets in which they operate. “The commercial marketplace is undergoing radical and disruptive change,” says Portell. “Our clients are being asked to respond to issues most of them couldn’t have imagined even a decade or so ago. Complex new problems require bold new solutions and a bold new way of going to market. We don’t want our clients to just keep pace with change. We want them to lead it through growth, innovation, creative solutions, and the new operating models, metrics, and tools we are in position to give them.” Portell’s clients include some of the world’s largest and most influential companies. He is an active speaker, sought-after author, and advisor on emerging topics including rapid earnings expansion, the evolving consumer, global business transformation, and sustainable growth. Using a consumer-first point of view, he has developed solutions for clients on how to address consumer needs with meaningful benefits as well as published materials through the Kearney Consumer Institute, Kearney’s Inside the Mind podcast, and other legacy reports.

Kathy Gramling has more than 25 years’ experience in the consumer goods and retail industry. In her role as the EY Americas Consumer Industry Markets Leader, she leads teams in aligning the right parts of the EY organization to resolve consumer clients’ most pertinent issues. Gramling also serves as the global client service partner at Ernst & Young LLP for several significant consumer clients. It’s Gramling’s view that as a leader, she is in service to not only her clients, but also her peers, her teams, and her EY Consumer community. In this role, it’s important to her to mentor, inspire, and open up opportunities for the next generation, for women, and for minorities both inside and outside of EY. Gramling has deep experience across brand management, consumer and shopper marketing, multichannel, salesforce execution, trade funds management, and marketing mix optimization. Prior to joining the EY organization, she spent 3 years in Paris and 10 years in London leading teams across Europe and Africa. Gramling received her MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and her Bachelor of Arts from the College of William & Mary.

Kathy Gramling is a seasoned leader in the consumer goods and retail industry with over 25 years of experience, currently serving as the Americas Consumer Industry Markets Leader at EY. Gramling brings a wealth of knowledge to her role, with a background in consumer and commercial strategy, brand management, supply chain transformation, digital manufacturing strategy, salesforce execution, and trade funds management. Her international experience includes leadership roles in Paris, London, and Africa.

Gramling’s prior roles include senior consultant at Accenture, several roles at PwC including associate partner, FMCG/retail industry executive at IBM, global vice president of marketing at CAS AG, and principal at Booz & Company. Gramling holds an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and earned her bachelor’s degree from the College of William & Mary.

Leon is the Global Consumer Industry Leader at Deloitte, covering retail, consumer products, automotive as well as travel and hospitality and representing $10.6 billion in global revenue. He is also the Global Sector Leader for Consumer Products, serving C-suite clients around the world, especially in the Food and Beverage and Apparel and Footwear business. Pieters has more than 25 years of experience in complex business and digital transformation projects, supply chain optimization projects and revenue improvement initiatives for large multi-nationals in these sectors. He is leading multi-disciplinary teams across countries and regions, with a focus on “making it happen and making it stick.” Pieters also serves as the Global ESG leader for Clients and Industries at Deloitte. He is passionate about sustainability, reducing carbon emissions, and supporting a resilient global supply chain. In this role, he helps senior executives at major companies accelerate initiatives to address climate change.

Anup Prasad has served as Senior Vice President & Business Unit Head of Consumer Business at Cognizant since March 2023. Prasad’s keen insight and dedication at Cognizant has seen him rise up through the ranks of the company’s Dallas office, heading its retail and consumer goods teams for the south central U.S. and central U.S. before assuming his current position. He thrives at the confluence of technology & industry expertise and is known for his client centricity & building high-performance teams. He has brought to life numerous strategic and operational advances to cope with the post-COVID world, publishing his insights on that subject on Cognizant’s website and beyond.

Before beginning his exemplary 22-year career at Cognizant in 2001, Prasad worked as a consultant at IBM, and was a manufacturing associate at Arvind Mills. He earned a Bachelor of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, an MBA from XLRI Jamshedpur, and pursued further training in Reimagining Strategy With Design Thinking from Harvard Business School.

Robert Holston is the EY Global Consumer Industries Consulting Leader, advising Fortune 100 consumer-facing companies and pioneering consumer technology startups on using data and analytics to transform retail experiences and define new markets. His expert analysis and points of view on retail marketing and brand strategy have been featured in Brand Week, Fortune, AdAge, and The Financial Times. He is often invited to speak on topics related to application of consumer analytics and insights to drive business performance. Before joining EY, Holston held executive and operating committee roles at leading data, analytics, and digital professional services firms such as Accenture as well as top-50 global consumer brands including The Coca-Cola Company. He has been a board member of the Marketing Sciences Institute and is a Founding Advisory Board Member of Columbia University’s Center for Pricing and Revenue Management. He currently serves on the Presidential Advisory Board for Drexel University. Holston earned a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Marketing from Drexel University and a Master of Business Administration in Marketing and Operating Science from the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School.

Rachel Rosenblatt is a managing director in the Strategic Communications segment of FTI Consulting, specializing in reputation management, crisis communications, corporate positioning, and communications training. She was recently named one of PR News’s “Top Women in PR” and is based in New York City. Rosenblatt provides strategic business and communications counsel, media relations, media training, presentation coaching, crisis management, corporate communications, and public relations expertise to her clients. She specializes in providing consulting services to retail and consumer companies that are looking to enhance their reputation, and implementing business and communications strategies on their behalf. She also regularly handles crisis communications and issues management for her clients, including serving as a spokesperson. Rosenblatt is also a founding member of the firm’s communications training team and has designed and implemented media, presentation, and investor relations training programs for multinational companies that have been executed around the world. As one of the firm’s senior trainers, she regularly coaches top executives in advance of media interviews, investor/analyst meetings, IPOs, and major presentations. Prior to joining FTI Consulting, Rosenblatt was a Director at Westhill Partners, a boutique consulting firm specializing in communications strategy. Rosenblatt serves on the Board of Directors for Youth INC, a New York City non-profit that serves local youth organizations. She is also a Director for the Stolen Chair Theatre Company, a not-for-profit laboratory theatre company. Additionally, Rosenblatt serves as a mentor through the Young Professionals Mentoring Program (YPMP), an organization for which she also serves as a Director. She is a part of TARA, a cohort of the Belizean Grove, which focuses on the next generation of global leaders. Rosenblatt graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology.

Sajal Kohli is based in Chicago and leads McKinsey & Company’s global work in the retail and consumer-goods industries. In more than 25 years of management consulting, Kohli has counseled leading global retail and packaged-goods clients as they set growth strategies and face the challenges of both the changing international landscape and domestic-market shifts because of digitization, consolidation, and new entrants. He has served retail and consumer-goods clients across Asia, Canada, Europe, Latin America, and North America. He serves retail clients across multiple formats, including hypermarkets, pure ecommerce players, grocers, restaurant chains, department stores, and leading consumer-goods companies across food, consumer-electronics, personal-care, beauty, and other categories. Kohli focuses on working with senior leaders and their management teams to drive growth and commercial and operations transformations across both retail and consumer-goods companies. Over the last few years, he has been spending a lot of time with organizations on the potential and implications of tech enablement, including advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, and their implications on the future of work. Kohli has also led numerous private-equity due-diligence efforts, including conducting due diligences and improving business performance of portfolio companies. In addition, he serves leading real-estate investment trusts. Regardless of the scope or size of a project, Kohli makes capability-building a top priority, coaching executives on change management and ensuring that newly embedded solutions and approaches change ways of working and drive business performance. Before joining McKinsey, Kohli was an executive for a retail and consumer-goods company in Asia and Europe. He has had the privilege of keynoting at leading industry forums, such as for APAS Show, Consumer Brands Association (formerly, Grocery Manufacturers Association), The Food Marketing Institute, Google Retail Advisory Council, and National Retail Federation, among others. As a well-published thought leader, he has contributed to the recent McKinsey Global Institute report on the future of work, growth, and renewal in the United States and is leading McKinsey’s proprietary perspectives on the reformation of retail. As a global citizen who has lived and worked across continents, Kohli is also deeply invested in the power of foreign policy and is a trustee of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. He earned his MBA from the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management.