Chair, Taleb Al Saleh, Director, Retail Marketing, ENOC,

Chairing the conference will be Taleb Al Saleh. Taleb is the Director of Retail Marketing at ENOC. Alongside fuel stations, ENOC is behind the leading homegrown convenience-store chain in the UAE, ZOOM.

Keynote, Laurent Guitart, CEO, Circle K UAE

Leveraging the rapidly changing convenience store: From Grocery to Gourmet

Laurent Guitart has more than 21 years of retail experience and a wealth of knowledge across all retail formats. He joined the Circle K team in 2015 with a program of change which resulted in a substantial increase in both revenues and margin, and a streamlining of supplier partners.  In 2017 and 2018, Circle K was awarded Best Retail Convenience Chain across the UAE.

Laurent has continued to grow the business and has overseen a rise in customer numbers from 4.6 to 6 million per annum. He is passionate about improving the customer journey and since 2017, has initiated a cashless program across all its branches.  Laurent graduated from Rive Gauche University in France and has been a resident of Dubai for the past 13 years.

Speaker, Darren Smith & Robert Onion ,

Refreshing the offer: Mapping the process for refreshing the Freshplus customer offer and retail brand

Darren Smith is the senior manager of retail marketing at Emarat. He has 30 years’ retail experience both in the UK and the Middle East, from hypermarkets to forecourt convenience stores. He has conceptualized and developed several retail concepts including franchise businesses.

Robert is the founder of Circle. Before setting up the company he worked in several leading brand and design agencies internationally, including in the USA and Spain. He is a regular speaker on branding and design for the fuel retail sector and a leading expert in fuel retailing in the Middle East.

Ignite Session, Satish Zope, Head of Petroleum & Digital Payment Business, AGS Transact Technologies

An expert in Retail and Supply Chain Management Technology, Satish has played a significant role across several positions he has held in his career spanning over 23 years. At AGSTTL, Satish has led many industry-first initiatives such as Fastlane, making a contribution towards the automation & digitization of the Indian fuel retail industry.

Prior to joining AGSTTL in 2010, Satish was associated with Mountain Technologies and Processbiz Technologies Inc. as the Head of Business Development where he successfully managed the growing demand for retail automation and CRM solution across the retail and oil & gas industry. He has also been instrumental in driving several innovative projects in India.

Satish is a post-graduate in Business Management from the University of Pune. In his free time, Satish can be found listening to old classical songs or playing cricket.

Testimonial, Tu Vu Thanh, CEO, 7-Eleven Vietnam

The forum was a great opportunity to connect, engage and share with industry experts and peers.  We met several potential supplier partners at the event who will be able to help us grow our business.  We look forward to participating and contributing in future events.

Testimonial, Ong Chee Jern, General Manager, Xpress Point

An insightful forum and key to understanding future trends for the CVS industry. The information and networking session were a great help for exploring new business opportunities. I would highly recommend this kind of event to any business associate that wants to grow their business in the region.

Ignite Session, Ideas worth sharing,

Short, sharp sessions to ignite your curiosity

Elevator Pitches, 45-second insights,

Giving delegates the opportunity to pitch their business to a captive audience and make themselves memorable.