Q. What have Paul Loft, Matthew Stead, Zia Zareem-Slade and Chris Haighton got in common? A. The Internet Retailing Expo

Paul Loft
Managing Director, Homebase

Paul has more than 25 years experience in Retailing in both Finance and General Management roles.

His early career was spent in the Burton Group where he held senior finance roles in a number of divisions including Finance Director of Burton Menswear and ultimately Finance Director of Debenhams.

As a general manager he has been Managing Director of Shoe Express and Shoe City, the GUS Home Shopping businesses and for the last eight years, Homebase, within the Home Retail Group.

Paul’s career has seen him focused on businesses operating in difficult market and competitive conditions leading transformations that have created value for shareholders and significantly enhanced customer propositions.

Website: www.homebase.co.uk

Internet Retailing Directory Index:http://internetretailing.net/people/iplf/

Colin Temple
Managing Director, Schuh

Colin Temple Managing Director of Schuh has been part of the successful fashion footwear chain for over 20 years. During this time he has experienced periods of both growth and decline in the high street. He helped establish schuh’s multi-channel credentials as an early e-commerce adopter and has been part of a number of management buyouts.

More recently he managed the sale of schuh to Genesco/Journeys which has put company firmly on a global footing. He is also a great ambassador of youth, ensuring young people play a vital role within schuh.

Website: www.schuh.co.uk

Internet Retailing Directory Index:http://internetretailing.net/people/ictp/

Joe Murray
Co-CEO, Worldstores

Rob Feldmann
Chief Executive, BrandAlley UK

Since 2009 Rob Feldmann has been CEO of BrandAlley.co.uk, the number one private sales website in the UK. Under Rob’s leadership BrandAlley UK has seen phenomenal growth and continues to cement its market leading position with over 3 million members.
Rob heads up the London-based team of 70 for BrandAlley UK which works with top luxury and high street brands. BrandAlley launches five designer sales each day with up to 70% off across fashion, beauty, homeware and lifestyle categories.
He previously worked for News International as their director of Mergers and Acquisitions and oversaw the acquisition of BrandAlley before taking over as CEO. Rob led a MBO of BrandAlley in January 2013 along with the rest of the UK management team.

Aaron Chatterley
Co-Founder and CEO, feelunique.com

Aaron launched feelunique in August 2005 with business partner and COO Richard Schiessl. In just 8 years of trading feelunique has become Europe’s largest online premium beauty retailer stocking more than 20,000 products from 530 brands. In 2012/13 the business grew 34% to a turnover of £34.4m with sales for the current year forecast to be in excess of £40m. feelunique employs over 170 people in the Channel Islands and London. In December 2012 Aaron sold a majority stake in the business to private equity, he remains at the helm as CEO to continue to drive the business forward to the next exciting phase of growth.

Aaron was a finalist in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards 2011 and Winner of the Institute of Directors – Director of the Year for a Large Organisation 2013.

Rakesh Aggarwal
Founder, Escentual.com

Rakesh Aggarwal (born 1975) is a British businessman and founder of the internet cosmetics retailer Escentual.com, which was described as the “Amazon of online beauty” by MoneyWeek.

Rakesh is the son of Raj K Aggarwal OBE DL – Wales’s honorary consul to India – and Mrs Usha Aggarwal. He grew up in Cardiff and attended the Cathedral School Llandaff and then Malvern College as a boarder. Aggarwal did not originally plan to go into the beauty sector; instead, he had expected to be a pharmacist like his father, who had emigrated from Kenya in the 1960s and ran a chemists in Cardiff. After A-levels at Malvern, he studied pharmacy at King’s College London but his plans came to a halt in the second year of his degree, after realising he wanted to go into business.

Aggarwal left King’s and consequently enrolled on Cardiff University’s MBA course, graduating with a distinction in 1999. He wanted to explore ways of taking premium beauty products, at the time mostly available through department stores only, to new customers through the internet. In 2000, Aggarwal spent £5,000 on the site and took an e-commerce course before launching Escentual.com, which was originally based in his parents’ garage in Cardiff. That gave him a platform to sell his business idea to the brands he wanted to work with, such as Christian Dior and Clarins.

Escentual is now one of the UK’s biggest online retailers of beauty and grooming products. In 2011, it posted sales of more than £10million and won the Beauty, Perfume & Cosmetics category at the Online Retail Awards. Speaking of his ambitions for the business, Aggarwal told The Sunday Times: “We want to be as well known as Asos but in the beauty market.”

Aggarwal lives in Old St Mellons, Cardiff, with his wife Caroline and their two young children.

Website: www.escentual.com

Louis Agabani
Co-Founder, MyHigh.St

Previously at Marks & Spencer, Loaye was involved in development and roll-out to stores of M&S’s greetings and toys offering and strategic move into music and leisure products.

Leaving M&S, Loaye went on to found a series of retail and leisure businesses in London and the South West, including Junior Toys, one of the largest toy retailers in the South West.

Loaye has an active involvement in, and understanding of, public sector and retail organisations including the Chamber of Commerce and the Federation of Small Businesses.

He has worked with many independent retailers supporting and advising on strategies to develop their online presence.

Ivan Lopez
Dad and CEO, Wauwaa

Ivan Lopez is Dad & CEO at Wauwaa.com, a rapidly growing startup that provides new parents and growing families with the combined service of informative and entertaining content together with an e-commerce offering of curated products that parents want and need. Wauwaa is based in London and Helsinki.

Originally from America, Lopez’ career was established in Europe, Asia, the US and South America. He has over 25 years of leadership experience pioneering new services from the first mobile communications products to transforming the digital content industry in Hollywood. He held executive positions with Disney, Sony Pictures, Red Bull, Hutchinson Whampoa, AT&T, o2 along with other leading startups from Europe and the US in technology and entertainment. He was Executive Producer of Sebastian Copeland’s most recent film, Across the Ice, The Greenland Victory March. He is also a PSIA certified ski instructor, and prior coach for the Vail Resorts Youth Development Team.

He believes in constant change, customer-first and the empowerment of teams to deliver results and to defy conventional thinking and create new market opportunities. Ivan’s biggest success and pride however is in being a dad to a budding young man who has just reached the age of 2