NEWS

WIRES

OTHER

Trade Promotion Management Associates (TPMA) Expands Advisory Board

Executives From Oracle, SAP and DemandTec Appointed as Members

Trade Promotion Management Associates (TPMA) announced the expansion of its advisory board today. The new appointments include Oracle Corporation Director of CG Industry Strategy Rob Hand, SAP Consumer Products Industry Principal Chris Wiesen, and DemandTec Senior Director of Consumer Products Industry Marketing Armen Najarian. "We are grateful for the tremendous support TPMA receives in the trade promotion industry," said TPMA CEO Diane Berry. "Our Advisory Board is particularly active and participative with TPMA. We are very pleased to welcome Rob Hand, Chris Wiesen and Armen Najarian to our Board and look forward to their contributions as we continue to expand services to our TPMA members."

The new members join current Advisory Board members:

--  Bob Baker -- Director of Trade Promotions Management, Dial Corporation
--  Chris Boever -- Vice President, Sales, ConAgra Foods
--  Carter Califri -- Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing, The
    Original Soup Man
--  Harris Fogel -- President, O4 Corporation
--  Michael Forhez -- Senior Principal, Consumer Products & Retail
    Practice, Infosys Consulting
--  Dale Hagemeyer -- Research Vice President, Gartner, Inc.
    

"The addition of Rob, Chris and Armen will help TPMA better serve the trade promotion industry," said TPMA Executive Director Bob Houk. "Each has experience managing trade promotion programs as well as serving such programs from a technology perspective, and so will help guide us in enhancing collaboration among trading partners as well as increasing efficiency, improving forecasting accuracy and growing categories across the board."

Rob Hand is Director of CG Industry Strategy at Oracle Corporation. Hand is a 36-year veteran of the promotional allowance marketing industry. He has been a leading influence in the cooperative advertising and trade promotion industries, authoring more than 500 co-op and promotional allowance programs worldwide. He is the founder of MEDIANET, now Trade One Marketing and has pioneered several innovations in the business processes and systems supporting administration and management of co-op, trade promotion, and MDF programs. Hand has provided consulting services to manufacturers, resellers and distributors for the development, deployment, management and analysis of trade channel promotion programs for companies including: Nike, T-Mobile, Research In Motion, Ltd., Twin Laboratories, Intel, and Frito-Lay to name a few.

Chris Wiesen is Consumer Products Industry Principal for SAP. He has over 25 years of diversified business and technical experience in the areas of Trade Marketing, Brand Marketing, Sales Management, Finance, Solution Engineering and Consulting. Wiesen has extensive Trade Promotion Management experience managing very large trade promotion budgets for two progressive food companies. He has led two award-winning TPM software implementations including one that went live less than 90 days. Wiesen is also a former Senior Brand Manager responsible for national and regional consumer food brands. In addition to his business background, Wiesen has technical experience as a consultant and solution engineer for contract management, trade promotion management, deduction management and related areas.

Armen Najarian is Senior Director of Consumer Products Industry Marketing at DemandTec. Having held brand and trade marketing roles at ConAgra Foods, Avery Dennison, and Gateway, Najarian has more than 11 years of CPG and technology marketing experience. At DemandTec, he oversees market definition, solution strategy, and sales force enablement for DemandTec's on-demand software and analytical services used by many of the world's leading CPG manufacturers.

The 2009 advisory board member appointments come at a time of expansion for TPMA. Upcoming TPMA initiatives include:

--  The launch of the industry's first online peer network for the
    retail/supplier relationship: TPNexus;
--  Communities of Practice addressing specific issues within and beyond
    trade promotion, from accurate forecasting to customer centricity;
--  The first Trade Promotion Virtual Forum on Second Life February 3;
--  The State of Retail: A Financial Perspective one-day summit Feb 11;
    and
--  A summer conference addressing the issue of Reinventing Collaboration
    for Trading Partners
    

In addition, TPMA for the first time is offering individual memberships in addition to corporate memberships, which will provide individual members with a cost-effective option to participate in online communities, network with their peers, benefit from the educational resources available within the members-only website (www.tpmaww.com), and participate in industry events at highly discounted rates.

About TPMA

TPMA (www.tpmaww.com) is the premier membership organization dedicated specifically to the practice of trade promotion marketing in all its forms -- co-op/MDF, in-store marketing, online promotion, rebates, pricing, slotting, and all the other practices of trade promotion. TPMA fosters, promotes and provides platforms for collaboration in the trading partner relationship. TPMA is a think-tank and educational resource for Consumer Goods Trading Partners, and publisher of the online magazine, Journal of Trading Partner Practices (), and the weekly newsletter, TPMA Outlook. TPMA corporate members include Hormel, Dial, Del Monte, ConAgra Foods, Hewlett-Packard, Nintendo, Land O'Lakes, Johnson & Johnson and many more.