Spark Plug

Coupontools serves over ten thousand customers around the world in 85 countries on nearly every continent with a leading digital marketing platform used for rewards, loyalty, coupons, digital vouchers, gift cards and much more. Bert Croimans serves as Head of Sales and Marketing at Coupontools. Based in Belgium, Coupontools is now seeing renewed interest as the retail world recovers from Covid.Thanks for listening to Spark Plug -- find all our episodes at Sparkplug.audioSpark Plug is brought ...

Melissa Wong, CEO and co-founder of Retail Zipline, shares insights about the growth of her company, key customers who have broken the code on maximizing customer satisfaction, and the challenges of raising funds as a female entrepreneur. Retail Zipline has raised $39 million in venture funding and is a rising leader in retail communication with customers ranging from global manufacturers to local retailers.Thanks for listening to Spark Plug -- find all our episodes at Sparkplug.audioSpark Pl...

Lenka Jelinek, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer for groundbreaking retailer Green Zebra, describes her journey to digitize the channel of the convenience store grocery retailer. Jelinek outlines the challenges and opportunities that she has encountered in her transition from compute market leader Intel to a leadership role at market innovator Green Zebra. Green Zebra has changed the face of grocery retail in underserved and high-density, walking-friendly communities, and Je...

Ned Hayes, CEO of SnowShoe and long-time identity and retail innovator, describes the current retail scenarios that led SnowShoe to create the Spark Tap, a revolutionary new hands-free device that can securely and safely log retail loyalty events. Joined by market researcher Ashley Coates, they discuss the arduous path towards innovation. Engineering hurdles included scaling a prototype, sourcing electrically conductive plastics and lighting a 3D printer on fire!Thanks for listening to Spark ...

Merchant Risk Council CEO Julie Fergersen is a lifelong expert on fraud prevention and retail consumer protection. As CEO of the Merchant Risk Council, Julie has led the way in expanding the MRC's international reach, and assisted hundreds of retailers to understand, identify and prevent fraudulent behavior. Julie gives insights on how to retail fraud trends, the e-commerce pandemic "peak" and how the retailing future has to continue to pass the "Mom" test, even in the era of augmented realit...

Susan Stover, public speaker, consultant and expert in identity services. As a former VP of Digital Content at FindBiometrics and Mobile ID World she transformed our conversation about mobile authentication. Today, she shares insights about naked payments and retail biometrics and also educates us about FemTech as a baseline requirement for all new tech moving forward into the future of technology innovation. Thanks for listening to Spark Plug -- find all our episodes at Sparkplug.audioS...

Skip has headed up TAO for nearly 10 years. In this interview, Skip explains how his team works with local entrepreneurs, investors and policymakers to help startups play the "long game" of social change to create an inclusive world-class innovation economy. Clear-eyed insights on point of sale systems, diversity in tech, BLM, how Covid has changed tech work globally, and the opportunities for startups and small retailers in a post-Covid world.Thanks for listening to Spark Plug -- find all ou...

Joan D. Pepin, Founder and CEO of stealth-mode security company ZeroWall.io, is previously a two-time Chief Security Officer at Auth0 (recently acquired by Okta for $6.5 billion) and at Sumo Logic. In our interview, Joan comments on market consolidation in the IAM space, SnowShoe's hardware-centric approach to security, and tells us that Alexander the Great used secure protocols still deployed in modern systems today. Listen for a front-row perspective on the global shifts in security and aut...

Intel leads the way with retail innovation in technology, customer service, and new analytics insights. In this second of a two-part interview, Intel Retail leader Joe Jensen discusses retail during Covid, hyper-curated content, micro-targeting, technology enhancement, and behavior tracking across diverse retail experiences. The retail revival is coming post-Covid -- and Joe believes that more technology makes everything better, and he shares his mission to help brick-and-mortar retail ...

Intel leads the way with retail innovation in technology, customer service and new analytics insights. As head of an Intel division worth billions, Joe Jensen emphasizes learning from retail customers and deploying best-in-class technology solutions to make retail better. In this first part of a two-part interview, Joe talks about his history at Intel and shares his learnings from the front lines of retail's 21st-century digital transformation. Joe's insights point the way to the future of th...