In our last posting, we showcased our Retail “Thought Leaders” Panel as the highlight of this year’s edition of The New York Produce Show and Conference, which will be held in Manhattan, November 7 – 9, 2011.
This year’s show is a significantly richer event in terms of the workshops and seminars, and a part of this grew out of an unexpected but happy occurrence at last year’s event — it turned out, even without any marketing or promotion on our part, that people from all over the world were interested in seeing what the industry was doing in New York and what this event had to offer the world. We had people from Japan, Africa, the Middle East, and a European who visited recounted his experiences in a column for Pundit sister publication PRODUCE BUSINESS magazine. Frank van der Windt from the Van Rijn Group out of the Netherlands gave us this testimonial in his column, titled Full Service By Means Of Global Partnerships:
Not really sure what to expect, we have been positively surprised by the effectiveness of the show. Since The New York Produce Show and Conference was a relatively small-scale regional show… the focus of this show was totally on networking and making new contacts, turning this into a complete breath of fresh air. In our opinion, a focus as such made the New York Produce Show more effective and accessible than the bigger shows…
As a result of all this, and in homage to New York’s traditional role as a gateway to America, we have installed a one-day special event the day before the trade show dedicated to global trade of produce. Workshops run the gamut, from direct retail procurement to the role of shipping and logistics, and the whole event leads up into the Opening Night Cocktail Reception.
The program is terrific, the tie in with The New York Produce Show and Conference powerful, and the New York location — after all, it is the “capital of the world” — is perfect, but there are two really special components to this inaugural event.
First, we have had the extraordinary good fortune to secure Mary Anastasia O’Grady as our Keynote speaker. The Pundit never misses one of Mary’s “America’s” Monday columns in The Wall Street Journal and we are so excited that she will share her wisdom with us.
Here is a mini-bio on Mary:
Mary O’Grady is a member of the editorial board at The Wall Street Journal and writes editorial columns on Latin America, trade and international economics. She is also editor of ‘The Americas,’ a weekly column that appears every Monday and deals with politics, economics and business in Latin America and Canada.
Ms. O’Grady joined the paper in August 1995 and became a senior editorial page writer in December 1999. She was appointed an editorial board member in November 2005. She previously worked as an options strategist, first for Advest Inc. and then for Thomson McKinnon Securities in 1983. She moved to Merrill Lynch & Co. in 1984 as an options strategist and was also a product manager and a sales manager for Merrill Lynch Canada and Merrill Lynch International during her 10 years with the company.
In 2009 Ms. O’Grady received the Thomas Jefferson Award from The Association of Private Enterprise Education. Recipients of this award are selected because they represent the best that the free enterprise system produces. In 2005 Ms. O’Grady won the Bastiat Prize for Journalism awarded by the International Policy Network for her articles on the World Bank, the underground economy in Brazil and the bad economic advice the U.S. often gives to Latin American countries. The Bastiat Prize was developed to encourage and reward writers whose published works promote the institutions of a free society. In 1997 Ms. O’Grady won the Inter American Press Association’s Daily Gleaner Award for editorial commentary, and in 1999 she received an honorable mention in IAPA’s opinion award category.
Ms. O’Grady, who was born in Bryn Mawr, Pa., received a bachelor’s degree in English from Assumption College and an M.B.A. in financial management from Pace University.
Here is a link to Mary’s columns in The Wall Street Journal.
Insightful, informed, recognizing the subtext behind events, Mary gets to the heart of issues that others avoid or don’t see. She writes and speaks with a weightiness and wisdom that is a very rare treat indeed.
That she is brilliant and articulate is reason enough, but we specifically sought Mary as our first choice of speakers because she is someone who could help us in the industry by elevating the substance of this symposium beyond the prudential concerns of daily produce trading. Anyone who attends will leave with a new level of understanding of Latin America, and if you are any good in business, within that insight is bound to be great opportunity.
We are honored by Mary’s presence in another way as well. She read the piece we wrote regarding my father’s diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, and following both the strict conflict-of-interest policies of The Wall Street Journal and the generous proclivities of her own heart, Mary asked that in lieu of a fee, funds be donated toward the fight to cure pancreatic cancer.
We, in turn, have decided to turn the entire Global Trade Symposium into a benefit for research to cure pancreatic cancer, and so 100% of the proceeds from this event will be donated toward this cause. So you can do well for yourself by attending this event, networking and educating yourself to advance your business in import and export.
You can also do good for the world by being part of this event and thus part of the effort to rid the world of the scourge of pancreatic cancer.
You can register for the Global Trade Symposium or any part of The New York Produce Show and Conference right here.
If you are interested in being a sponsor and supporting the Global Trade Symposium or any part of The New York Produce Show and Conference, click here.
A few exhibiting opportunities also remain so if you have an interest please click here.
Hotel rooms at the Hilton New York are available here.
Travel discounts can be found here.
Looking forward to seeing you in New York, where for a few days on November, the capital of the world becomes the capital of the produce industry.
