Selim Saad, Regional Director for the Levant and North Africa at REACH (Research and Consulting House).

With over 25 years of market research expertise, data analysis and consultancy, Selim Saad is the Regional Director for the Levant and North Africa at REACH (Research and Consulting House). He has managed and directed research operations in more than 20 countries in the Middle East and North Africa dealing with local and multinational firms. He is a specialist in MS, consumer behaviour and attitude, brand equity, opinion polling and socio-political surveys. He is also a trainer and mentor for CSR programs and social entrepreneurship.

Sam has leveraged many relationships throughout his career and continues to excel his clients’ expectations through his array of service offerings including: audits, mystery shops, brand ambassador programs, telephone surveys, customer satisfaction reporting, merchandising support assignments, and competitive analysis for over 100 clients in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, Canada and Europe. He is experienced with serving some of the most highly recognizable global brands.

Stan Hart is currently the President and CEO of Alta360 Research and has over 25 years of international general management, market research and brand strategy experience. Prior to serving in these capacities, Mr. Hart was the founder and CEO of WBS, Inc., which was merged into the operations of MeadWestvaco Corporation. Mr. Hart has a B.A. degree in Chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.

Luis is a graduate in Hotel Management and founded Pentaudis in 1998, having previously worked in Management positions in Hotels & Tourism and in Retail, in Portugal, Germany and England.

His work experience was gained working for Accor, Sheraton and Lidl. Currently Luis heads a team of 31 dedicated professionals that are focused on helping their clients improving their customer experiences.

Pentaudis is split into two Business Units – Mystery Shopping and Market Research & Data Analytics – and offers within these units various management tools, that are used in line with the client’s specific goals. In the most recent client satisfaction survey Pentaudis achieved a satisfaction rate of 92% and a recommendation rate of 100%.

Luis is very involved with the internal and external clients and one of the areas he is responsible for delivering results is Innovation. In his free time Luis likes to spend time with family & friends and to practice sports, specially Bootcamp, and reading, reading, reading!

Václav works as Country Manager at Market Vision Czech Republic. Market Vision is a research agency that closely focuses on Mystery Shopping, Customer and Competitive Intelligence. Their motto: "We transform information into business. We help our clients to better know their market and to improve their relationship with their customers in order to increase their sales figures."

He is a graduate economist. His passion for research first appeared during his studies at the university, when he began to devote himself to large-scale domestic and international projects in the field of competitive telecommunication intelligence, working mainly for T-Mobile.

In the area of Mystery Shopping, Václav has been specializing in automotive and telecommunication sector, where he acquired extensive knowledge. His great interest, in favor of the maximum satisfaction of clients, is, in particular, to fully utilize the potential of audio or video recordings, especially for subsequent individual training or coaching of employees. Another area that he is constantly developing for his clients is the use of Mystery Shopping for price, competitive and benchmark sector analysis.

Václav occasionally publishes and lectures in specialized periodicals on the collection of customer feedback and competition monitoring in the Czech Republic. He successfully participated in the launch of one of the first start-ups in the area of "self-assessment schemes" in the Czech Republic called Ohodnot.cz. About his career relationship with Mystery Shopping and Customer Experience he sometimes says: „Who else should be involved in Mystery Shopping industry than anybody from „Check“, sorry Czech Republic.

Václav has one daughter. He likes hiking, cycling, running and traveling.

Zaheer Ghani is Director at Shaw Hotels & Consultancy Services Pvt Ltd. He is actively involved in and heading business development and marketing activities, as well as developing new markets across the globe. Along with Shaw Hotels, Zaheer is actively involved in the Sales & Marketing of ShawMan Software Pvt Ltd. one of India’s leading Hospitality Software Companies and Bonasera Hotels Pvt Ltd. (Resort) which are family-owned businesses. Apart from work, playing basketball is a passion. Have represented the state of Maharashtra, India at the National Level. He still plays at the competitive club level and for the best club in Mumbai.

Nabil is the Founder and CEO of GWR Consulting, a customer experience management & quality control company in the Middle East and North Africa, established in 2005.

He has led many customer experience strategic initiatives that have positively impacted many business sectors. Nabil was formally trained in social and behavioural sciences at the American University of Beirut. He has attended multiple executive education programs at Insead and Leicester University. By engaging and motivating his team, GWR has rapidly expanded to cover every country in the Middle East and North Africa

Michael Bare is a modern day pioneer of the Mystery Shopping Industry. 

It began in 1987 when he and his wife (Dale) founded Restaurant & Hotel Services, now known as Bare International (www.bareinternational.com)

Today BARE is one of the largest global organizations specializing in Mystery Customer Research, Audits and Customer Service Measurement, for all industry segments. 

BARE has its corporate office in Fairfax, VA, USA with other business offices in Antwerp – Belgium (2001), Mumbai – India (2004), Shanghai – China (2005), Sao Paulo - Brazil (2006) Santiago Chile (2008), Budapest (2010) and Singapore (2012).  From these offices, services are provided in over 137 countries, with a staff of over 250, speaking 32 different languages.   

In 1997, Mike co-founded the Mystery Shopping Professionals Association, (www.mystery shop.org) now a global association (US, Europe, Asia and LA) of similar companies committed to the consistency and quality of the industry deliverable.  Mike served on the global board and in 2013 was elected as the Global Association Chairman.  

Mike is also a member of the prestigious ISHC, (International Society of Hospitality Consultants (www.ISHC.org).  In 2008 BARE was recognized as one of the top 10 Global Hospitality Consultants.  

Always looking at new opportunities, as well ways to revolutionize customer service training, in 2001 Mike founded Video Eyes LLC, a firm specializing in the use of hidden video for the staff self-training.  

In 2009, he co-founded Optimum Audits, specializing in retail center audits for developers.

Bare International was listed as one of the Inc 5000 fastest growing US firms in 2007, 2008 and 2009.

With passions of service evaluation and travel, it's only logical Mike has provided numerous presentations for business and industry worldwide. Speaking engagements include:

1) Multiple client conferences (retail clients, non-profit organizations, health & fitness clubs, hotels, Chamber of Commerce, travel & tourism)

2) NRA – National Retail Association

3) MRA – Market Research Association

4) ISHC – International Society of Hospitality Consultants

5) IACC – International Association of Conference Centers

Aftab has more than 15 years of Mystery Shopping experience in the Asian Region, his contribution to the industry is well recognized. 

He is also a member of the MSPA Global Advisory Board and the only Member who has served on European, Asia Pacific and Global Boards of MSPA. Presently he is the Director of Professional Development of MSPA-AP.

Aftab has successfully conducted a number of workshops in China, Malaysia, India and Australia in the recent past.

Founder of MSPA Europe (2001) and Better Business World Wide (1995). Veronica has been the President for MSPA Europe and MSPA Global Board, and is now a member or MSPA Global Advisory Committee.

Better Business World Wide is a specialist in developing and coordinating global mystery shopping projects. Better Business can report from the moment of truth in real time, in local language, worldwide. Better Business unique reports are efficient and concise enabling employees and managers at all levels within the organization to understand them.  

Veronica has written several books about mystery shopping, service and leadership for the industry, for managers, and for the employees that will be evaluated by mystery shoppers. The books are currently available in 20 languages.

Veronica is the founder of SSQ Award, the Scandinavian Service & Quality Award which is a quality program for Hotels and Conference Venues, accredited under the European Hospitality Quality scheme by HOTREC.

Veronica is also the founder of The Smiling Report which annually since 2004 has aggregated mystery shopping data about Smiling, Greeting, and Add-on Sales per country and industry. So far, 69 mystery shopping companies have joined the report.