Audience:
Open industry. All apparel and footwear industry professionals, regardless of AAFA membership, are encouraged to participate.
Description:
Focusing the effort on raw materials may bring many benefits, allowing brands and retailers to bring to the market products that meet consumer expectations. On January 13, Gap Inc., SgT, and NTX will share a cross vision on the importance of a consumer centered approach that ensures better fashion from the earliest stages of the supply chain.
Attendees of this webinar will learn:
- How raw materials are crucial for fashion brands, their consumers, and the planet.
- Concrete examples of the benefits of focusing on raw materials.
- How to improve the fashion supply chain from the raw materials.
Speakers:
Alex Thomas
Vice President - Global Quality
Gap Inc.
Alex Thomas is the Vice President of Global Quality at Gap Inc. He has spent his professional life between Europe and Asia working with various brands and retailers. In the 1990's, Alex was based in Switzerland, India, Denmark and London working with various European fashion brands. In 2002, Alex moved to China to work with K-Swiss where he led the company's portfolio of brands in China and SE Asia in many functions from Design and Development through to Operations, Production and Quality over a 10 year period. In 2012, Alex moved to VF Asia in Hong Kong, leading the Engineering teams and VF's 3rd Way program. In 2018, Alex joined Gap Inc. in Hong Kong, where he is currently based, leading Global Quality Assurance on Product Quality, Technical Design, Product Integrity, Testing, Safety, Color and Fit CoE.
Marie Annabelle Mermaz
CEO
SgT
Marie-Annabelle is the CEO of SgT, among other leading functions within the Worms Safety Alliance. Her prior experience includes operational and management roles at a major French fashion retailer and the world's 2nd largest shipping line. Marie-Annabelle has extensive expertise across different markets and production countries including the US, Asia, and Europe in supply chain management and textiles. In 2005 she relocated to Asia, working across China, India, South East Asia and finally Hong Kong. Marie-Annabelle perpetuates the uniqueness of SgT's offering - built on 30 years of experience - and takes it to the next level. Today, SgT is the sole textile quality specialists with strong manufacturing expertise stemming from an unparalleled boots-on-the-ground approach. She thrives on bringing global teams of softlines compliance, quality and sustainability experts together to develop tailor-made solutions to help fashion actors prevent and manage risks.
Jeffrey F.Hsu
CIMO
NewTech Textiles (NTX)
Jeffrey F. Hsu is the CIMO at NewTech Textiles (NTX) an innovation textiles solutions technology company that is a global leader in waterless ambient temperature transfer print technology (NTX™ CoolTrans™). Prior to his current role, Jeff comes from a diverse academic and industry research background where he double-majored in Chemistry & Microbiology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and commenced his Masters in Chemistry from University of Missouri, Kansas City. He then had extensive research background in pharmaceutical, medical engineering, petrochemical, agricultural science as well as innovations within textile science and engineering at FENC R&D center. At NTX he has focused on market driven approach to inspire new innovation and research.
Dean Paul Lewis
Senior Director of Global Technical Services
SgT
Dean Lewis is currently the Senior Director of Technical Services at SgT. Dean has over 36 years of experience leading supply chains for global brands, as well as multi-regional manufacturers. He is a global leader with in depth experience managing supply chains in Asia Pacific and more recently spearheaded growth in the African continent. Dean is a vertical professional with a record of accomplishment across sourcing, quality, technical, production, planning and manufacturing excellence. Dean has pioneered global quality assurance, supply chain software development and implementation and manufacturing excellence programs for leading brands, driving significant improvements to efficiency and the bottom line. He is creator and implementer of global quality/technical and compliance manuals and systems, as well as factory design, build and set up expert. Dean is a qualified Industrial Engineering Professional.
Moderator:
Nate Herman
Senior Vice President, Policy
AAFA
Nate Herman oversees AAFA’s Policy department, managing the association’s lobbying, policy, and regulatory affairs activities. Nate leads AAFA’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) program, formulating and implementing CSR policy and representing AAFA and the industry on CSR issues before governments, NGOs, and other key stakeholders. In addition, Nate develops all apparel and footwear industry data and statistics as AAFA's resident economist. Prior to joining AAFA, Nate worked for six years at the U.S. Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration assisting U.S. firms in entering the global market. Nate spent the last two years as the Department's industry analyst for the footwear and travel goods industries. Nate received a Masters of Public and International Affairs from the University of Pittsburgh in 1994 and a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and Economics from the University of Delaware in 1992.