distribution
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Doug Robison and the business after the sale
Doug Robison joined DSI in 1986, when satellite equipment was the family business. Four decades later, his attention is on what happens after a dealer wins a customer.
Dan Watkoske and the distance between an order and a promise
He began as a paper sales trainee in 1989. Now, as Alside’s CEO, Dan Watkoske leads a national supply-center network where the next chapter depends on what happens close to the customer.
Aaron Erter and the distance between a wall and a deck
After a career in tools, paint and manufacturing, Aaron Erter brought siding and decking under one roof. Now the James Hardie CEO has to turn an acquisition into something that works for the people building the house.
Jet Lee and the business of getting there
Before J&T Express, Jet Lee built a career getting phones into people’s hands. His next business took on everything else that could fit inside a parcel.
Shane O’Kelly and the distance between a part and a promise
A used Toyota helped make him a car enthusiast. Army command and a career in distribution taught him about delivery. At Advance Auto Parts, Shane O’Kelly is trying to bring those lessons to the counter.
Gunner Smith and the long way back
He left Ply Gem in 2008 and returned to its parent company as CEO in 2025. Between those jobs, Gunner Smith learned what happens when the customers you know need more than the factories can make.
Mark Witkowski and the business beneath your feet
He joined the waterworks business in 2007 and spent years building its financial machinery. Now Core & Main CEO Mark Witkowski is responsible for keeping a much larger network moving, without losing its local knowledge.
LT Gibson’s very big bet on staying local
He started US LBM with 16 locations in 2009. As the business grew into a national network, LT Gibson kept returning to a deceptively difficult question: how much should a local company change when someone buys it?
Tim Cofer and the view from the supermarket shelf
He began by auditing stores. After decades in chocolate, pizza and pet supplies, Tim Cofer is leading Keurig Dr Pepper through an acquisition that will change the shape of the company.
Stanley Bergman and the summer-camp theory of business
Before he led Henry Schein for more than 35 years, Stanley Bergman learned commerce in a family shop and leadership at summer camp. His long career asks a practical question: how do you keep everyone in the game?
Sergey Pronin and the distance between a factory and a field
From Russian distribution depots to Brazilian crop tours and Baltic ports, Sergey Pronin’s career follows the practical business of getting fertilizer to the people who use it. In March 2026, he became First Deputy CEO of PhosAgro.
Cédric Varasteh and the business of putting the internet together
He founded ETC in 1993 and spent three decades assembling the telecom supplier that became Netceed. His story runs through warehouses, acquisitions, a carefully prepared handover and a company that kept changing after he left the CEO’s chair.
Herman W. Lay and the job he almost refused
He doubted there was a future in potato chips. Then Herman W. Lay took the sales job, built a snack business, and helped bring Frito-Lay and Pepsi-Cola together.
Dinesh Lodha and the value of a step down
A move from finance into a lower-ranking supply-chain job helped Dinesh Lodha reach the CEO’s office. At Medikabazaar, that winding career now meets a demanding assignment: making growth pay its way.
Doyle Williams Spent 40 Years Learning How to Sell Certainty
Four decades in an industry that sells the one thing nobody wants to think about. How Protective Life's marketing chief turned distribution plumbing, digital tools and a stack of professional letters into a career built on quiet certainty.
Andrew Butt
Andrew Butt is the co-founder and CEO of Enable, the San Francisco-based B2B rebate management platform that reached unicorn status in 2023 with a $1.12 billion valuation after raising $120 million in Series D funding. A UK-born entrepreneur who left school at 15 and became the youngest qualified helicopter pilot in his region at 17, Butt built his first software business from a flying school in Coventry and has spent over two decades turning overlooked operational problems in distribution and manufacturing into category-defining software companies. Enable now serves over 10,000 brands across 50+ industries and has raised more than $275 million total, with Butt positioning it as the system of record for all B2B rebate and trading agreements between manufacturers, distributors, and retailers.
Nelson Lee
Nelson Lee is the Founder and CEO of InfrasAI (formerly iLife Technologies), an AI-powered workflow infrastructure company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. Drawing on early stints at Tencent and J.P. Morgan and participation in Stanford's Idea-to-Market program, Lee spent years mapping the fragmentation inside insurance distribution before building infrastructure to fix it. InfrasAI's headless connectivity platform decouples business logic from user interfaces, enabling insurance carriers to deploy workflows across any distributor channel without rebuilding backend systems - reducing maintenance costs by up to 60% and accelerating deployment speed by up to 70%. Backed by $21M in funding led by Foundation Capital and top insurtech investors, the company serves enterprise clients including Transamerica and Guardian across life, annuities, group benefits, disability, and wealth management.
Nico Enea
Nico S. Enea is a co-founder, board member, and distribution lead at NUG, Inc., a state-licensed, vertically-integrated California cannabis company he helped build from the ground up starting in 2014. Operating out of Alameda and Oakland, NUG has grown into one of California's most recognized cannabis brands, represented in over 80% of the state's dispensaries, with $28M+ in annual revenue, 150 employees, and a $15M Series A round under its belt. Enea also serves as Founder and CFO of Bloom Innovations Holdings LLC, a cannabis holding company managing diverse assets including property, IP, patents, and securities.
Darren Bonnstetter
Darren Bonnstetter is the CEO of Conexiom, a Vancouver-based AI-native platform automating sales order processing for manufacturers and distributors. Appointed in August 2025, he brings a rare blend of mechanical engineering rigor (Iowa State, Stanford MS, Harvard MBA), turnaround consulting at AlixPartners, and climate-tech entrepreneurship - having co-founded and led 280 Earth, a Google X spinout that raised $50M to capture carbon using industrial waste heat. At Conexiom, he leads a 210-person company serving 16 of the top 20 distributors globally, with $170M in total funding backed by Warburg Pincus, Luminate Capital Partners, and ICONIQ Capital.
Matt Mullen
Matt Mullen is the Chief Executive Officer of White Cup, an AI-powered CRM and business intelligence platform purpose-built for the distribution industry. Appointed in February 2021 by private equity backer Eden Capital, Mullen brought over 20 years of enterprise software leadership to the role, including a prior stint as President of ProShip where he doubled revenue and led a successful acquisition. Under his leadership, White Cup has grown to serve 850+ customers globally, launched a comprehensive CRM product in 2024, and acquired Sales Management Plus to deepen its footprint in distribution technology.
Katia Ameri
Katia Ameri is a Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) focused on the intersection of consumer and technology. An LA native of Iranian descent and Stanford graduate, she was the first investment hire at Pear VC, then founded Mirra - a skincare company that grew to 200,000+ newsletter subscribers with zero ad spend - before joining a16z in 2021. At a16z she leads consumer investments, runs the Speedrun accelerator program, and is the founder of Tech Week by a16z, a decentralized conference series in SF, LA, and NYC that drew 40,000+ attendees and 1,000+ events in New York alone.
Brian Balfour
Brian Balfour is the founder and former CEO of Reforge, the professional development platform for experienced product, growth, and marketing practitioners that grew to 100,000+ alumni before being acquired by Miro in March 2026. Now Chief Growth Officer at Miro, he is best known for the Four Fits Framework - the thesis that Product-Market Fit alone cannot drive $100M+ growth, and that market, product, channel, and model must all interlock. A former VP of Growth at HubSpot, serial entrepreneur, and Venture Partner at Long Journey Ventures, Balfour is one of the most influential thinkers in the product-led growth movement.
Nick Eubanks
Nick Eubanks is a serial entrepreneur, digital marketing executive, and distribution-first strategist who has built and sold multiple businesses, scaled agencies to 100+ clients serving the UFC and Nestle, co-founded Traffic Think Tank (acquired by Semrush for $1.8M), and now serves as Global CMO at Digistore24 while operating two investment vehicles. His core thesis - that distribution is the last competitive advantage that survives AI - is reshaping how founders and marketers think about sustainable growth.
Ross Simmonds
Ross Simmonds is a Halifax-based content marketing strategist, agency founder, and author whose core thesis - create once, distribute forever - has reshaped how B2B brands think about content ROI. As CEO of Foundation Marketing (a ~$3.8M revenue agency serving Canva, Snowflake, and Bitly) and founder of Distribution.ai, he operates at the intersection of data-driven creativity and systematic amplification. Ranked #3 globally by BuzzSumo among content marketers, he has generated over $110M in new business for clients and built a following of 75,000+ newsletter subscribers.