33 rd IAF World Fashion Convention Rio de Janeiro Speakers

The IAF’s 33rd World Fashion Convention, to be held in Rio de Janeiro on October 16-18 2017, will feature a very strong and interesting line-up of speakers, many from the world’s major apparel retailers and brands. The theme of the Convention is ‘compliance and technology – key drivers for industry and retail’. Therefore, we are proud to be able to present speakers that will give delegates cutting edge examples of how the apparel industry is dealing with the most interesting advances in technology and sustainability.

PVH

Marissa Pagnani, PVH’s Group Vice President Corporate Responsibility will demonstrate why PVH has a leading role among large apparel corporations in the field of social responsibility and sustainability as recognized by the 2015 Corporate Responsibility Magazine “100 Best Corporate Citizens List's with the #2 ranking in the Human Rights category. Fitting for a cutting-edge approach to compliance is PVH’s commitment to moving beyond compliance by enhancing remediation and capacity-building.

Esquel

Esquel is one of the world’s larger manufacturers with a production of over 100 million pieces and well over 57000 employees. The CEO of Esquel, John Cheh, will explain how Esquel today sets a positive example by proving that a company can be both profitable and committed to sustainability and worker welfare. Mr. Cheh will provide a great practical example of how technology can be used to achieve this goal and how a commitment to operational excellence stands at the heart of this strategy.

Hugo Boss

Joachim Hensch, Managing Director Hugo Boss Textile Industries and heading in this capacity Hugo Boss’s largest owned factory in Turkey is perfectly positioned to share with the Convention’s delegates how technology is driving operational excellence. Having presided over the excellence of the product itself Mr. Hensch now is devoted to the excellence of the manufacturing process. He will give us his vision of how industry 4.0 and particularly the digitalization of production processes is able to boost productivity and flexibility.

Sewbo

Jon Zornow is the owner and founder of Sewbo. He has shaken the apparel industry with his invention of a sewing robot that uses a revolutionary stiffening process. This allows panels of clothing to be handled by the robot as if they were car parts. Sewbo has made the industry realise that the future may very well bring a much more automised and less labour intensive apparel industry. Mr. Zornow will be able to share with us his vision of the apparel industry perhaps partly shaped by his own invention.