Whether we recognize it or not we consume a large percentage of our goods, ranging from cars to toys to food manufactured in the global marketplace. The number of imported products is large and growing daily. Do these products meet our safety standards? How do we know that?

Are you currently doing business internationally or planning on it? Do you know what risks your brand faces by doing business around the globe? Headlines are bursting with recalls such as, dogs and cats dying from pet food to lead paint on toys! Our discussion will highlight many differences when doing business globally. Whether you buy supplies and ingredients or co-manufacture outside of North America you need to take some specific steps to understand and manage the additional risk to your brand.

Questions to be answered at this workshop include:

• Where are you doing business?
• How do you determine the risk?
• What specific risks are you taking?
• How do you mitigate your risks?

 Steve Gruler, Founder & President 

Global Quality Consulting, Inc.

Bernhard Steves, Senior Vice President 

Colemont Insurance Brokers of Illinois  

Steve is a results driven executive with 26 years of global strategic leadership experience in quality assurance and risk management. He is passionate about developing and institutionalizing world-class quality systems that assure premium quality products while delivering outstanding business results. He believes that companies must manage risk to part-per-million (PPM) levels with systems that predict and prevent vs. those that inspect and reject.  

He has gained this experience and passion working for companies like Quaker Oats, Consolidated Containers and as Global Head of Quality for Clorox and Gerber Products. His firm works with companies around the globe to ensure that they stay out of the headlines or if they do end up in a crisis; they are well equipped to manage it effectively.  

Bernie is recognized as one of the country's leading product recall, contamination, and food borne illness insurance specialists and is responsible for developing Colemont's Product Recall Team.

He has worked with some of the largest companies in the United States and Canada, including numerous Fortune 500 companies, to address product recall, contamination and food borne illness exposures.