Executive Profiles
Lorence A. Harmer, Chairman
Mr. Harmer has extensive experience in bringing consumer goods, from inception on factory floor to retail shelves throughout Asia, North America Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe. He lead Jabra (Bluetooth headsets) to produce in Asia as well as helped found Harmony Remote (now Logitech) work from concept on paper to tens of thousands of units on retail shelves. He co-founded Polaroid Consumer Electronics, LLC (PCE) in 2003. Under his leadership, PCE grew from its licensee position with Polaroid Holding Company to a company with worldwide revenues of more than $1 billion and then acquired the Polaroid Company from Bank On Equity Partners. Prior to joining PCE, Mr. Harmer co-founded Lone Star Sourcing, LLC where he managed multi-national sourcing operations in China, Korea, Taiwan, Mexico, Vietnam and Thailand. Mr. Harmer’s previous experience includes Director of Business Strategy for PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP (Chinese and Taiwanese M&A), co-founder of Wholonics Leadership Group, LLC, and Director of Organizational Development for Nortel Networks. He was also President of Consumer and Retail (Verizon, AT&T, Dell, RedBox and Wal-mart, etc) at Flextronics Corporation (World’s largest contract manufacturer). Mr. Harmer earned an MBA, MOB and a BA in Chinese & Asian Studies from Brigham Young University (On Athletic Scholarship, Football). While working on his PhD at the University of Michigan he taught Rapid Prototyping and Process Design at University of Michigan’s Executive MBA Program. Mr. Harmer is an equity shareholder of Polaroid and an investor many privately held entities. He currently serves on the board of public company (Nasdaq). Mr. Harmer speaks, reads, and writes Mandarin Chinese and Spanish fluently.
Giovanni Tomaselli, CEO & Managing Director
Since the early 80’s, Mr. Tomaselli has worked across the Far East in manufacturing and trading experience from China to the United States, Australia and Europe. Mr. Tomaselli formed World Wide Licenses Ltd in 1993, which achieved distribution in over 50 countries. In 2002 WWL was awarded the exclusive right to use the Polaroid brand in the area of Digital Cameras on a worldwide basis, and within 3 years exceeded sales of 5 million units worldwide. Based in Hong Kong, he has had varying responsibilities working for WWL including the sale of its parent to Disney. Most recently he worked as Managing Director of Consumer Electronics for Flextronics, prior to founding and acting as Managing Director of Global Industrial Services Ltd. a company he founded in 1995. He has managed multinational customers, including product lines for Sony, SanDisk, Microsoft, Apple and Polaroid. Giovanni also help create the unique process of “Demand Flow Planning” for which he was written up as a Harvard Business School Case Study. Mr. Tomaselli is fluent in English and Italian.
Robert B. Lamb, Executive Vice President & General Counsel
Mr. Lamb most recently served as an International and Corporate transactional lawyer (and Shareholder) for a prominent law firm in Salt Lake City, Utah. Prior to coming to Utah in 2008, Mr. Lamb worked for two large multi-national law firms in Phoenix and Atlanta with a practice focus on complex domestic corporate and cross border transactions. Mr. Lamb has extensive experience in establishing joint ventures in the Far East and other parts of the world and in negotiating consumer product manufacturing, licensing and distribution agreements. He is considered an expert in all legal matters relating to the supply chain of consumer products. Mr. Lamb has a B.A. degree from the University of Utah (History and Chinese) and a J.D. degree from Creighton University School of Law. Mr. Lamb is also fluent in both spoken and written Mandarin Chinese.
Patrick D. Bailey, Vice President, Finance
Mr. Bailey recently was stationed in Shenzhen, China as the global head of finance for the $2.6 billion USD consumer electronics division of Flextronics. Mr. Bailey oversaw the finance and accounting functions across 11 offices in 9 different countries. Mr. Bailey managed all aspects of the finances for the division, including periodic forecasting and reporting, budgeting, cash flow management, net working capital management, capital expenditure planning, designing business flows, managing inventory, reviewing tax decisions, and providing strategic analysis on the business. Mr. Bailey was also responsible for the M&A process within the division, including the negotiation of deal terms, financial models, due diligence, and integration planning. During his time at Flextronics, Mr. Bailey worked on many cross-border deals, including deals in China, Japan, Hong Kong, and Russia. Prior to Flextronics, Mr. Bailey worked at the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission where he was responsible for reviewing the internal controls and risk management practices of large and complex financial institutions. Mr. Bailey holds an MBA in Finance and International Markets, and he has extensive experience in the consumer electronics industry, in manufacturing, and in international business. He also has significant experience in mergers and acquisitions in an international environment. Mr. Bailey holds a BA in Chinese from Brigham Young University and a MBA in Finance from Yale University. Mr. Bailey also speaks, reads, and writes Chinese at near-native fluency levels.
David Miller, Vice President and General Manager
David brings over twenty years of extensive branding, strategic marketing, retail merchandising, strategy consulting and sales leadership to Summit/Global. David is in charge of managing all North American marketing, new product, sales and operation functions as well as the overall profit plan for the company. Prior to joining SGG, David was in charge of managing +$1.0B retail merchandising portfolio across Televisions and Home Entertainment, Consumer Imaging businesses and all photofinishing services for Target Corporation. He was successful in making paradigm shifts within the TV and photofinishing categories through introducing new disruptive technologies. Previously, David was the Sr. Marketing Officer at Maytag Corporation where he ran a $4.0B brand portfolio including Maytag, Jenn-Air and Amana. David and his teams led all advertising strategies, agency management, event marketing, public relations, market research and internet services. David successfully grew the brand equities at Maytag while also implementing new consumer segmentation and brand architecture frameworks to drive consumer insights and purchase behavior. David was also a Principal Manager at PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP Strategic Change Practice where he worked with clients such as Ralston Purina, Anheuser Busch, Blue Cross/ Blue Shield and Coors Brewing Company. David attended the University of Iowa on a Fine Arts Scholarship and graduated with degrees in Business Administration and Fine Arts. He also earned his Masters of Management degree from J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Business at Northwestern University where he also attended on scholarship.
Eric Kriegisch, Vice President, Planning & Operations
Eric currently facilitates our Sales and Operations Planning process (Helped found a process unique in our industry called Demand Flow Planning). Mr. Kriegisch implements procedure control, key metrics and accountability across functional areas of the company. He also catalyzes executive reviews ensuring focus on company profitability. He previously has implemented strategic and tactical planning processes, which allowed the start-up business to increase “Polaroid” and its annual sales revenue from $150 million to over $1 billion in 3 ½ years. Through his career he has developed solid partnerships with customers and vendors along with implementation of effective Supply Chain Management processes which directly contributed to receiving the following awards: In 2006 his received the Supply Chain Excellence Award from Circuit City, in 2005 he received the Vendor of the Year Award from Target Corporation and in 2004 he was awarded the Bravo! Award from Best Buy.
Gary Evans, Vice President of Sales
Gary is an accomplished Senior Sales and Marketing veteran with 30 years of deep leadership experience developing and driving strategic sales and marketing initiatives at Eastman Kodak. Gary delivers profitable solutions to both his retail customers and to the company as he maximizes his extensive network of relationships and contacts to win new business. Gary has previously served as Vice President of Sales for Kodak across all Drug, Mass, Club and Specialty Channels selling over $1.4B in digital imaging and commercial photofinishing products and services to retail clients such as Target Corporation, Wal-Mart and Costco. Gary also served as Managing Director for Kodak’s Canadian businesses as well as ran their subsidiary professional services division. Gary earned a B.A. in Political Science from Loma Linda University.
Elaine SY Wong, Vice President & General Manager
Ms. Wong has work closely with Mr. Tomaselli for over 10 years and runs our production and all process related to manufacturing department ( ISO Compliance, QC, and retail specific requirements . Ms. Wong also previously worked for Flextronics and has been credited with wining products like the XBOX, Sony Bravia TV’s, several Apple products and Blackberry handsets just to name a few. Elaine brought with her the top producing team from Flextronics as one whole core (38 elite engineers) when she joined the team. Ms. Wong is also fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese.
Tiffany M. Runyon, Executive Assistant to the Chairman
Tiffany Runyon most recently served as the head paralegal at Kirton & McConkie, a prominent law firm in Salt Lake City, Utah. Tiffany currently serves the assistant to the Chairman, Lorence A. Harmer and has also run the Summit Global Group trade shows including CES in Las Vegas, Sundance Film Festival and the upcoming Tribeca Film Festival. Tiffany oversees the Public Relations Department for the United States. Tiffany holds a B.A. degree in Business Administration and Paralegal Studies from UNLV, she also received a specific certificate from UNLV’s paralegal program and graduated top of her class.
John Lavery, VP - Media Group
John brings over thirty five years of international and domestic experience in procurement and new product introduction to SGG. Prior to joining Summit/Global, John managed Polaroid’s worldwide procurement organization which oversaw the development of new analog and digital instant products including the Polaroid One instant analog camera which sold in the millions, the Polaroid PoGo printer and the instant digital camera which were the vanguard products of Polaroid’s entry into the instant digital arena. In this role John was responsible for the corporation’s $300M of procurement spend per year. Prior to his ten year tenure at Polaroid, John worked for Digital Equipment Corporation in various senior purchasing and new product roles where he was responsible for managing millions of dollars in engineering investments and hundreds of millions of dollars in product procurement John has worldwide new products introduction and manufacturing experience, and was based in Ireland, Scotland and France for many years prior to transferring to the USA in a corporate role. John has vast experience of dealing with worldwide suppliers and specifically those in the Far East. He understands the nuances of doing business in Asia, and has developed strong positive relationships with our suppliers. He has in depth understanding of the structures of the companies we deal with in Asia, their manufacturing operations, business strategies, technology investments and long term goals. John is currently responsible for managing the development and manufacturing execution of all of our instant digital and instant analog camera and printer products.
Yusuke Kojima, Board Member of Summit Global Japan KK
Mr. Kojima has been a well-known leader in Japan’s camera industry for over 36 years. He played key roles in one of Japan’s leading camera manufacturers, the Olympus Corporation. Since he established and successfully led the Digital Camera Department at Olympus in 1996, it has become one of the core businesses of the company. In 2003, thanks to his continuous success, Mr.Kojima was appointed to manage the worldwide digital camera strategy of the Eastman Kodak Company in the United States as Vice President. In 2004, he became the CEO of Kodak Japan. Under his leadership Kodak managed to successfully reenter the Japanese market, which is known to be one of the most severely competitive digital camera markets. Kodak originally withdrew from the Japanese market in 2001. In 2006 Mr. Kojima became President of Flextronics Japan, the second largest electronics manufacturer in the world overseeing the relationships with companies like Sony, Panasonic, Epson and others. Today, Mr. Kojima is a board member of SGJ and is very active in bringing Polaroid back to the Japanese Market. Mr.Kojima writes and speaks English.
Michael Thomas – Vice President - EMEA
Michael leads the business ventures of SGG in the EMEA region, with P&L responsibility and brings over 25 years experience in Sales, Marketing and General Management to the role. Michael has a proven track record of delivering profitable revenue growth both domestically and internationally and is well versed in bringing new products to market. Prior to joining SGG and his time managing Polaroid's Imaging portfolio in Europe, Michael enjoyed five years in IT, working for two of the fastest growing worldwide software publishers, being European Sales Director for Quarterdeck and UK MD for IMSI. In addition Michael had a ten year tenure in OEM sales to the Automotive industry, working extensively with Ford, GM, Jaguar and Land Rover Group.
Junichi Fujimoto, Representative Director & General Manager – Summit Global Japan KK
Mr. Fujimoto has been playing an integral role in the growth and development of Japan's information technology sector, most notably his involvement in internet liberalization as the Co-Founder and President of Livedoor Co., Ltd., first ever Free internet service provider in Japan, in 1998. He had built Livedoor and made it the leading free ISP in Japan. Mr. Fujimoto has founded and led numerous internet businesses in Japan, including eZuz Japan, online mobile shopping site which he took the company to public at Tokyo Stock Exchange as Founder/CEO. He also sits as Representative Board Director of a2media KK (Pronexus Group TSE1 7893), Freecom Technologies KK (Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Group) and also FON Japan KK (Google Inc. Group) appointed by Sergey Brin, developing Japanese first Free WiFi internet service for expanding Japanese mobile devices. Currently FON Japan has exclusive partnership with SoftBank Group. Mr. Fujimoto is responsible for the total operations of Summit Global Japan. Mr. Fujimoto is also fluent in English.