ICBA Retail Conference & PRIMEtime 2027

Jared Pearlman is Vice President, Product and Operations, at Verba | VitalSource. He grew up in Southern California, and went to high school with his Verba Software co-founder, Ryan Petersen. At Harvard, where the Coop Bookstore is operated by B&N, Jared and Ryan teamed up with classmate, Mike Regalie, to start Verba Software as a student government project. After graduation, their price-transparent shopping interface continued to evolve and spawned other software platforms aimed at helping college stores thrive in an increasingly competitive online world. Verba now serves over 350 predominantly independent college stores with a suite of products that has grown to meet the changing needs of college bookstores.

Ryan Petersen, Vice President, General Management, Verba | VitalSource, helped found Verba Software with his high school friend, Jared Pearlman, and their Harvard classmate, Mike Regalie. Begun as a student government project to help Harvard students find the best values in course materials, Verba has grown into one of the leading innovators in the college store industry, serving over 300 college stores with price-transparent shopping interfaces, faculty course discovery tools, and sophisticated marketplace analytics. Verba products are helping independent college stores stay relevant and competitive in an increasingly challenging environment.

Sarah presented at ICBA’s 2016 and 2017 Conferences, and will share her no nonsense views of what’s really going on in terms of consumer spending behaviors across multiple segments in the U.S. and around the world.

McCann Worldgroup is a leading global marketing and branding consultancy with over 20,000 employees in 100+ countries. McCann’s Suzanne Powers & Toby Southgate will share their insights and proprietary data on how business and brand strategies must intersect to achieve overall success and to best serve customers.

We’re pleased to welcome Algernon Callier to the ICBA Conference stage as someone for whom innovation has not just been an occasional business tactic, it has been an effective and essential business strategy. Al will share hard won practical insights about achieving scalable innovation and its impact in the “new normal” of omni-channel and increasingly experience-driven retail environments.

Ken Wincko, Barnes & Noble’s Vice President of Marketing, has agreed to openly share their internal and proprietary research with ICBA Members on critical topics such as: Student Pulse, Conversations with Gen Z, Mental Health & Well-being, Convenience Wants/Needs.

The first e-book was shared over the Internet (or its predecessor ARPAnet) five decades ago, and web-based online learning started approximately 25 years ago. There has been a continuum of changes taking advantage of digital platforms and content, including long-term developments by textbook publishers themselves.