Bits about Books

Geoffrey Burch is one of the most sought-after business speakers and thought leaders in the world, renowned for his electrifying and humorous presentations that inspire real change in organisations.  With a unique blend of sharp wit, deep business insight and charisma, Geoff has captivated audiences across the globe, helping businesses to unlock their full potential.  His focus on sales, leadership, customer service, and change management has earned him an enviable reputation.  

Geoff is the best-selling author of numerous influential business books, including “Resistance is Useless”— “Writing on the Wall”, “Go It Alone”, “The Way of the Dog”, “Irresistible Persuasion”, and “Self-made Me”.  His books are revered for their practical advice, engaging stories, and humour, making complex business strategies accessible to all.

In addition to his writing, Geoff has made many TV appearances, most notably as the star of the hit BBC series All Over the Shop, where he transformed struggling businesses with his dynamic coaching and no-nonsense approach, and is a regular business presenter on the BBC’s Inside Out programme.

Geoff’s contribution to business and management has been recognised with multiple accolades.  He was awarded the prestigious Business Communicator of the Year by the Speechwriters’ Guild and was also named one of the world’s Top Ten Motivational Speakers by the Wahstory Organisation.  He continues to be featured amongst the top Keynote speakers and business influencers globally.  

Run time – 01:04:47 mins.

Links for Subhanjan 

[email protected] 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/subhanjansarkar

Alistair Croll is a founder, bestselling author, and conference organiser. After a decade as a product manager in deep tech at Eicon, Primary Access, and 3Com, he co-founded Real User Monitoring pioneer Coradiant, raising a $20M series A in 2001 (the largest investment of its kind in Canadian history at the time). Coradiant’s groundbreaking TrueSight traffic performance technology was acquired by BMC in 2011 for $135M. 

In 2010, Alistair co-founded the Year One Labs accelerator, an early-stage incubator that turned $350K in investment into $10M in valuations in six months, launching companies like Localmind (acquired by Airbnb to build their local experiences offering.) He also spent three years as a visiting executive at Harvard Business School, where he worked with Srikant Datar (now the dean of the school) to create the MBA course Data Science and Critical Thinking, and has been a guest lecturer at McGill and Stanford. 

Throughout this time, Alistair has been a sought-after public speaker and the founder of several leading technology conferences, including UBM’s Enterprise Cloud Summit and Cloud Connect, O’Reilly’s Strata, and Data Universe. He is also the co-founder of Startupfest, Canada’s original startup event; FWD50, which is now the world’s leading conference on digital government; and Scaletech, Georgian’s annual conversation on scale-stage startup growth. 

Alistair has co-authored several books, including Managing Bandwidth (a definitive text on QoS and network performance); Complete Web Monitoring (one of the first books to tackle social media monitoring in depth); and the bestselling Lean Analytics (which has been translated into 8 languages, and is widely considered required reading for startup founders). His latest book, Just Evil Enough, looks at subversiveness in business and will be available in early 2025. Alistair lives in Montreal, Canada. 

Run time – 00:54:05 mins.

Justin Michael is a world-record-breaking, outbound sales expert who has arguably developed the most comprehensive client acquisition methodology – the Justin Michael Method (JMM™)- on which he has written multiple books as part of the JMM series.  With over 20 years of experience in sales, including at Salesforce and LinkedIn, Justin is the authority on AI-based outbound prospecting. His counterintuitive, mobile-responsive, neuroscience-backed visual prospecting methodology made him a million-dollar earner. Justin is the bestselling author of “Sales Superpowers” and “Tech-Powered Sales,” which he co-wrote with Tony Hughes and proved that over 75% of the top funnel can be automated by raising your TQ – technology quotient.  

Co-Author Charles Needham engineers sales systems that uncover alpha in overlooked data, eliminate inefficiencies, and scale with precision. He began his career in finance, with exposure to structured products and private equity, before transitioning into revenue leadership at high-growth startups. He integrates psychology, game theory, and first-principles thinking into scalable frameworks that consistently outperform legacy sales models. Charles is the Founder of the Needham Advisory Group and Founding Account Executive at TitanX.  

Run time – 00:59:44 mins.

Mark Schenkius is the founder of ROI10, a globally operating training and consultancy firm focused on making you successful in negotiations, procurement and sales. He has worked for Mars Inc. for over 17 years in a variety of procurement functions and has extensive experience providing training to both sales and procurement professionals. He is also a lecturer in Business Economics at Fontys University of Applied Science and author of “The Other Side of Sales”, which gives sales professionals unique insights into the mysterious world of buying. 

Run time – 00:55:06 mins.

Larry Kulchawik is a seasoned leader in the global trade show and exhibit design industry, with over 45 years of experience specialising in international face-to-face marketing. He is also the author of “Trade Shows from One Country to the Next,” a widely respected guide detailing exhibit strategies and cultural insights across 45 countries. His work emphasises the critical importance of adapting marketing strategies to local customs and cultural expectations.  

Larry’s career spans leadership roles at three of the top U.S. exhibit design firms — Exhibitgroup, Derse, and 3D Exhibits. He has served as President of the Exhibit Designers & Producers Association (EDPA) and the International Federation of Exhibition and Event Services (IFES), representing members in over 45 countries. In recognition of his impact on the industry, he has received the Hazel Hays Award from EDPA and the Roger Taurant Award from IFES.  

A graduate of Southern Illinois University, Larry studied design under legendary visionary Buckminster Fuller, whose influence shaped his approach to creative problem-solving and global design thinking.  

Today, Larry remains actively engaged as a consultant, speaker, and educator, supporting college-level exhibit design programs at Bemidji State University and FIT/NYC, and contributing a regular column on international topics for Exhibit City News.  

Larry’s unique global perspective, combined with his passion for mentoring and industry advancement, continues to make him a vital voice in the evolving world of trade shows and experiential marketing.  

Run time – 01:01:04 mins.

Ulhas Kamat is an accomplished business leader who has successfully discharged the P&L responsibility of a variety of businesses and has been instrumental in turning loss-making units into profit-generating entities. His extensive international work has included staff and line responsibilities in both developed and developing countries.   

His professional engagements include Fortune 500 companies like ICI, Unilever, IBM, TATA, and Unisys in India for two decades. The following 20 years, he was associated with a global holding company that owns and operates autonomous units worldwide. He held total P&L responsibility for various business units in different countries. Geographically, this covered the USA, East Africa, West Africa, and Southeast Asia.  

Ulhas, after four decades in the private sector, transitioned to the social sector to use his skills, knowledge and experience for the benefit of the underserved communities. Till his return to India, he was the Director of Program Services at the Washington, DC Minority Business Development Center, a funded project of the US Government.  

He served as a member of the Committee of Courses on Entrepreneurship of CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education), India.  

Ulhas holds a B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Bombay and has undergone specialised training in Small Business Mentoring at Tuck School of Business, University of Dartmouth, USA.  

Run time – 52:41 mins.

Richard Harris is a multi-award-winning sales leadership expert and trainer who has fundamentally reshaped how modern companies approach Sales conversations and customer engagement. As the founder of The Harris Consulting Group, he has earned recognition as a 4-time Salesforce Sales Leader and 5-time AAiSP Top Sales Leader for his innovative “Earn The Right” methodology, which transforms how sales teams navigate customer relationships and drive revenue.  

Harris’s client portfolio spans Fortune 500 enterprises like General Electric, Visa, and Salesforce to high-growth startups such as Dusty Robotics and Lattice.  

Beyond his consulting work, Harris is the co-founder of “Surf and Sales” and has established himself as a prominent voice in the sales community through his widely followed podcast of the same name, which has aired over 400 episodes. His thought leadership and expertise have made him a sought-after guest speaker on numerous business and sales podcasts.  

A passionate advocate for mental health awareness in sales, Harris balances his professional achievements with his role as a husband and father of two sons. His approach to sales leadership emphasizes both high performance and human-centric values, making him one of the most respected voices in modern sales transformation. 

Run time – 01:02:28 mins.

K Ganesh is a seasoned serial entrepreneur and the founder of GrowthStory.in, a leading venture builder platform that has incubated and scaled multiple successful start-ups across diverse sectors, including BigBasket, Portea Medical, Bluestone and HomeLane, which have redefined industries by leveraging innovative business models and cutting-edge technologies.

Ganesh’s entrepreneurial journey also includes founding and scaling ventures like IT&T (acquired by iGate), CustomerAsset (acquired by ICICI, now known as FirstSource), Marketics (acquired by NASDAQ-listed WNS) and TutorVista (acquired by Pearson).

An adjunct professor at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore and a visiting faculty at the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad, Ganesh teaches courses on new-age Business Models, bringing his extensive experience in disruptive technologies and management to the classroom. He is also the Founder-Director of the IIM Calcutta Innovation Park & Incubation Cell and a former member of the Board of Governors at IIM Calcutta.    

A mentor to start-ups and an active angel investor, Ganesh has been instrumental in shaping India’s start-up ecosystem. 

He is a distinguished alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta and Delhi University, a frequent speaker at global forums and a champion of social initiatives in healthcare and skill development through his non-profit, Bahaar Foundation. 

He is the author of “Mastering Disruption: A Practical Guide to Understanding New-Age Business Models” (Penguin Random House India). The book reflects his deep understanding of the transformative business models shaping the future of industries worldwide. 

Run time – 01:02:28 mins.

Mark Schaefer is a globally-recognised author, keynote speaker, futurist, and business consultant who blogs at {grow} — one of the top five marketing blogs in the world. He teaches graduate marketing classes at Rutgers University and has written 10 best-selling books. Mark’s many global clients include Pfizer, Cisco, Dell, Adidas, and the US Air Force. He has been a keynote speaker at prestigious events worldwide, including SXSW, Marketing Summit Tokyo, and the Institute for International and European Affairs. Mark has appeared as a guest on media channels such as CNN, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and CBS News. Mark studied for three years under the legendary Peter Drucker and has several patents to his name. 

Run time – 56:57 mins.

Gregory L Vetter is a well-established innovator and disruptor in the clean food movement. The oldest of the Vetter brothers, he had the brilliant idea of launching Tessemae’s after being inspired by his mother’s wildly popular homemade dressing recipe. What Gregory knew, and the American consumer base was soon to discover, was that the idea would soon resonate widely and give rise to an entirely new clean food category.  

Gregory and his broader family, primarily brothers, Matt and Brian, cultivated the business and in a mere 5 years translated their vision into becoming the #1 organic salad dressing brand in the refrigerated space. The emergence of Tessemae paved the way for clean manufacturing on a mass scale by inventing the only gum-free dressing bottling process. Ultimately, that manufacturing process led to the creation of the “fresh condiment” category and, similarly, the first Whole30-approved bottled dressings and condiments in the nation.  

With the wind clearly at their back, Gregory and his brothers launched Alta Fresh Food Company. Alta Fresh Food has since pioneered a better way to get great-tasting salads to the masses through their innovative “master kitting” process and breakthrough R & R&D team. After their triumph as “Sam’s Club Supplier of the Year”, resulting from their “Master Kitting” process, Alta was propelled to the forefront of the fresh food solutions industry.  

More recently, Gregory elected to take his lessons learned from his sustained success in the food industry and launched “Home Grown Brand Accelerator”. Home Grown was developed with a singular purpose in mind, “to empower the next generation of brands by making the “playbook” available to whoever had the desire to build the next great American brand.” Winner of Inc. Magazines Entrepreneur of the Year award, Inc. Magazines 35 under 35, EY Entrepreneur of the year finalist, TED talk speaker, Nielsen Design Impact Award for Packaging, And Sam’s Club Supplier of the Year, Gregory spends his time with his wife and 4 children on their farm in West River.  

Run time – 59:06 mins.