Pan-European Conference Sessions
Resilience and Growth in Turbulent Times: How strategic customer collaboration drives competitive advantage internationally
Keynote – Wednesday, 22 October
Presenter: Marc Darmon, Senior Vice President Europe & International Organization, Thales
Rapid and profound geopolitical changes are drastically reshaping defense and security markets in Europe and beyond. After years of underinvestment, most governments are seeking to accelerate procurement and innovation to better protect their citizens.
In his keynote address, Marc Darmon will share how industry leaders like Thales are not only responding to this demand but going further — leveraging strategic collaboration with key accounts, activating influence networks, and reinforcing their ecosystem management to outpace the market and secure long-term, sustainable advantage.
The Persuasive Power of Story: Guiding your clients to ‘Yes’
Keynote – Wednesday, 22 October
Presenter: Catherine Alexander, VP, Training Services, Corporate Visions Inc.
You’ve expertly cultivated trust, delivered undeniable value, and deeply understood your clients’ business needs. But simply presenting facts isn’t enough to secure long-term partnerships and expansion. How do you move beyond the transaction and inspire action?
This session will unveil the art and science of strategic storytelling. You will:
- Demystify the psychology behind complex B2B decision-making, understanding what truly resonates with buyers.
- Leverage research-backed narrative frameworks to transform your insights and client successes into compelling, memorable stories.
- Gain confidence that every story you share actively strengthens and expands your most crucial client partnerships.
Keynote – The Value of the Account Manager in an AI Era
Keynote – Wednesday, 22 October
Presenter: Namita Powers, Principal, ZS
In a digital age, the power of human connection still holds strong — yet some organizations still wonder if they can do more with digital and less in-person. Where exactly does the human thrive? Where can digital and AI take the lead, and where are our account managers truly irreplaceable? ZS has done the research, and Namita Powers reveals the key moments where account managers deliver unmatched value.
This keynote will help you:
- Foster a renewed sense of purpose for strategic account managers and salespeople in an increasingly digital and AI-enabled landscape
- See research-backed strategies that help human salespeople thrive in a digital world by focusing on their irreplaceable, high-value interactions
- Understand how organizations can enable and redefine the sales role, ensuring the human remains vital to long-term growth
Influence Reborn: Rethinking power, trust, and growth in B2B relationships
Presenter: Hervé Debaecker, Founder, RIIM Collective; Jim Ford, Operating Partner, True North Venture Partners, and SAMA Chairman of the Board
Sweeping policy changes have reshaped the global balance of ethical pressure in the business world. In the current landscape, “influence” is being seen in a new light. It has re-emerged as a crucial capability in securing key accounts and navigating complex ecosystems. But how should influence be practiced? And how can it be done ethically, at scale, and in line with long-term value creation?
This is the core question behind “Influence Reborn: Rethinking power, trust, and growth in B2B relationships,” a joint bonus session hosted by SAMA and the RIIM™ Collective.
This session will include:
- Ethical influence management in the face of rising global deal pressure. Ethical influence requires more than good intentions. It demands structured group work, supported by advanced methods like RIIM™ to decipher, share, and act on the different types of relationships between people, using an ad hoc systemic approach.
- A practical introduction to ERCM (Enterprise Relationship Capital Management).
- Integrated perspectives from both the SAMA and RIIM™ communities on how influence, stakeholder orchestration, and network activation can sustain growth and stability — even under geopolitical strain, competitive intensity, or rapid organizational change.
Empowering Strategic Account Management Through Contracts, Pricing, and Ecosystem Collaboration: Endress+Hauser’s integrated approach
Track: Skills for SAMs
Presenter: Jacques Orbach, Head of Strategic Business Program, Endress+Hauser
In today’s complex global markets, strategic account success relies not only on strong customer relationships but also on expertly managing contractual and commercial frameworks and building powerful partnerships.
Jacques Orbach, Head of the Strategic Business Program at Endress+Hauser Group, will share how his organization has established dedicated support structures in contract management, pricing, and business analysis to empower strategic account managers.
Drawing from practical examples and the spirit of cross-functional collaboration central to the Embracing Ecosystems initiative, Jacques will illustrate how this integrated approach mitigates risk, ensures legal and commercial excellence, and fosters ecosystem collaboration by seamlessly connecting internal experts, partners, and customers. Participants will gain valuable insights into how contracts and pricing strategies become powerful enablers for creating value beyond products and sustaining long-term strategic partnerships in an increasingly interconnected business landscape.
Communicating the Value of SAM: What the best do differently
Track: Executive/Program Leader
Presenter: Dr. Philip Styrlund, CEO, The Summit Group
Tired of “justification fatigue”: having to constantly justify the value of your SAM program to your senior leadership? Often the toughest customer of your SAM program can be your own company. Join us for this highly interactive session that shares best practices from over 40 years of creating and elevating SAM programs. The session will provide you a “balanced scorecard” approach to articulating the impact of your SAM program to your own company in looking at the market, strategic, financial, and operational value of a well-supported program.
Leading High-Performing Account Teams
Track: Skills for SAMs
Presenter: Joshua Dey, SVP Global Accounts, The Summit Group
As traditional hierarchies shift towards collaborative, matrixed environments, SAMs must lead cross-functional account teams, breaking down internal silos to achieve high performance. SAMs succeed not through authority, but by fostering shared purpose, aligning team goals with customer needs, and leveraging diverse insights to drive innovation.
By developing skills in diagnosing team performance, setting shared goals, and facilitating open communication, SAMs can transform account teams from independent units to interdependent networks. This shift emphasizes leading from the middle, promoting horizontal collaboration, and focusing on building connections over managing parts.
With customers demanding more personalized, proactive service, SAMs must transition from transactional roles to strategic enablers adapting to dynamic customer expectations while building account teams that drive engagement and sustained success.
In this session we will:
- Survey the latest trends and research in building and sustaining high-performing account teams and the implications for the SAM role as account leader.
- Examine the key challenges in leading high-performing account teams including overcoming internal misalignment due to assumptions about shared motivations, misunderstanding influence without authority, and the knowing-doing gap in team-building practices.
- Introduce seven key skill sets of leading high-performing account teams that empower SAMs to cultivate teams that not only win and expand customer mindshare, but also innovate to address business challenges creatively, facilitate the development of shared goals and purpose among team members, and promote collaborative sharing of insights, ultimately enhancing strategic decision-making capabilities.
From Insight to Impact: Strategic discovery skills
Track: Skills for SAMs
Presenter: Marcus Redemann, Management Partner, Mercuri International
The insights gained from discovery conversations form the foundation for crafting customer-specific value propositions and highlighting competitive advantages. Furthermore, it will help to strengthen collaboration beyond boundaries and enhance your network, which is critical to building stronger relationships and fostering innovative solutions that address customer challenges effectively.
In this session, strategic account managers will learn advanced discovery techniques to extract deeper, more relevant insights from their interactions. Participants will also explore strategies to collaborate across disciplines, organizations, and geographies to uncover new opportunities. Additionally, they will gain access to a unique conversation framework that fosters meaningful dialogue with customers, captures value, and drives sustainable growth.
Unlock Influence: How strategic stories shape client decisions
Track: Skills for SAMs
Presenter: Catherine Alexander, VP, Training Services, Corporate Visions Inc.
Being a trusted partner isn’t always enough to drive renewals, growth, and expansion. The real challenge? Inspiring action when logic alone falls short.
In this hands-on session, you’ll discover how to use strategic storytelling to spark engagement and influence key decisions across the client lifecycle. Specifically, you’ll:
- Uncover what truly drives complex B2B decisions — and how to shape your message to align with how clients think and feel.
- Apply proven narrative structures that turn your insights, wins, and proposals into powerful, persuasive stories.
- Practice using these frameworks in realistic scenarios and receive feedback to sharpen your delivery and impact.
- Leave with confidence that your conversations will not only inform, but inspire — and help deepen and expand your most critical accounts.
Breathing New Life into an Existing SAM Program
Track: Executive/Program Leader
Presenter: Andrew Middleton, Enterprise Account Management Director, GE HealthCare; Imran Farid, General Manager, GE HealthCare; and Nigel Standing, Commercial Skills Lead – International, GE Healthcare
According to Gartner (2021), nearly 80% of sales organizations had to rebuild their strategic account management (SAM) program at least once in seven years. GE HealthCare faced this challenge just four years after regionalizing its global SAM program.
In this session, we’ll share how the International region at GE HealthCare revitalized its SAM approach — from recognizing the need for change to designing and implementing a new strategy. You’ll gain practical insights into the steps we took, the challenges we faced, and the lessons we learned along the way. We will also share a real-world example of how this approach has been successfully applied to support a priority account in the region.
Disrupting to Disrupt: Wajax’s strategic account journey
Track: Executive/Program Leader
Presenter: Andre Dube, SVP Sales & Operations, Wajax
In this session, André Dubé shares Wajax’s bold and deliberate journey to disrupt its legacy operating model in service of strategic customer partnerships. You’ll learn how Wajax unified siloed divisions, redefined success through co-creation, and built a culture where strategic account management became a growth catalyst, not a side project. From C-level sponsorship and talent transformation to the integration of SAM best practices and KPI-driven execution, this is a behind-the-scenes look at how Wajax shifted from being viewed as a complex supplier to a trusted technical advisor. Whether you’re launching a program or scaling one, this story offers inspiration and practical lessons on what it takes to lead, and sustain, true SAM transformation.
Driving Profitable Growth: Key initiatives at Saint-Gobain for strengthening their KAM program
Track: Executive/Program Leader
Presenter: Carlos Martín Boix, Commercial Excellence Manager and KAM Service Leader, Saint-Gobain
Moderator: Morten Junge, VP Customer Success, ARPEDIO
In this session you will learn how Saint-Gobain aims to drive profitable growth by assessing the maturity on key account management in their business units, and by identifying their needs in their organizations, with their customers, and in the market. You will learn how they guide and support each business unit individually, with their KAM service program, strong executive sponsorship, and local implementations.
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