Distribution Executive round Table
Rethinking the Revenue Stack
Wednesday, September 30 , 9:00 AM PDT / 12:00 PM EDT – 10:00 AM PDT / 1:00 PM EDT
A Roundtable for Distribution Leaders around the Commerce Chain Conversation: Margin, Technology, and What’s Actually Holding You Back
Distribution leaders are under real pressure right now. Tariffs, margin compression, and rising customer expectations are colliding with internal systems that were never designed to work together.
The commerce chain sits at the center of all of it. A sales rep gets a complex request from a key account. They have to pull pricing from one system, check contract terms in another, build a quote manually, wait for approvals, then hand it off to legal or ops before anything gets signed. Every step is a potential delay. Every delay is a potential lost deal.
This roundtable is designed to dive into the concepts of the commerce chain, understand where distributors are seeing the most bottlenecks, and develop a framework to start thinking about connecting the dots from pricing to signature. We will hit on topics that range from point solutions vs platform as well as the age-old question of build vs. buy.
This is not a presentation or product demo. It’s an opportunity to compare notes with fellow leaders, exchange ideas, and gain insight into how organizations across industrial, automotive, and chemical distribution are approaching these challenges.
EVent Details
- Format: Virtual Executive Roundtable
- Duration: 60 minutes
- Participants: Limited to 6–10 distribution executives
- Date: Sept. 30th
- Time: 12:00 PM ET / 10:00 AM MT / 9:00 AM PT
Attendance is limited to maintain discussion quality.
Hosts
Thomas Cowen
Head of Industry Strategy,
Conga
Aditi Mehta
Industry & Product Marketing Leader
Conga
Ian Heller
Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer,
Distribution Strategy Group
Sponsor
Thomas Cowen
Head of Industry Strategy,
Conga
Tom Cowen is a software industry veteran with over 30 years of experience in Sales, Contract and Price Management. Tom has spent the previous ten years at Conga and is the Head of Conga’s Industry Strategy team. His customers include leaders in various industries such as HLS, Distribution industry and work focuses on Industry Strategies. Prior to that, Tom was Director of Product Strategy at Vendavo, a leader in the Price Optimization space. Tom spent 15 years as a Global and Enterprise Sales Manager at market leading technology companies: Oracle, EMC and BEA Systems. As a Global Sales Executive, Tom managed, firsthand, the Sales and Negotiation Process as a supplier to top Pharmaceutical Manufacturers in the New York region.
Tom holds an MBA in Finance and BS in Marketing from New York University’s Stern School of Business and an MFA in Creative Writing from Salve Regina. He is the founder of Justin’s Smile Childhood Cancer Foundation which funds pediatric cancer research and patient and family programs.
Aditi Mehta
Industry & Product Marketing Leader
Conga
Aditi Mehta leads Industry Marketing for the High Tech and Manufacturing/Distribution verticals at Conga, where she shapes industry-specific strategy, messaging, and thought leadership to drive market growth. She brings over 10 years of experience in product marketing across B2B SaaS, with deep expertise in pricing and revenue lifecycle solutions. Aditi is passionate about translating complex technology into clear, compelling narratives that resonate with enterprise buyers and accelerate go-to-market success.
Host
Ian Heller
Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Distribution Strategy Group
Ian Heller joined Grainger as a part-time truck unloader in college and left fifteen years later as the VP Marketing. Since then, he’s held senior executive positions at four other publicly-held firms, consulted with dozens of distributors, and continues to write and speak extensively on how AI, strategy, channel evolution, and other major trends affect the industry. Ian holds a B.A. in History from Roosevelt University and an MBA from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University.