2023 Industry Research Study and Panel Discussion

Gail Pasquier has served as Chief Commercial Officer for Colart since 2015 and is responsible for sales and marketing globally, including local market Business Units and Brand teams as well as E-commerce and Group Marketing functions.  Before joining ColArt, she served as Regional General Manager at Twinings (part of Associated British Foods) for a number of markets across Europe, Middle East and Africa. Prior to that, she served at Diageo in a variety of commercial and marketing roles across their UK, European and African businesses.  Gail began her career with Coopers and Lybrand (as they were then) in their Management Consultancy Division, before then joining CarnaudMetalbox/Crown Cork and Seal in Paris.  Gail holds a Bachelor’s degree in Management and French from the University of Bradford Management School. 

Chris DiTullio has served as Executive Vice President, Chief Customer Officer since October 2019. His responsibilities cover all aspects in which our customer interacts with our brand, including field leadership and all aspects of store operations, development and in-store experience; omni-channel operations and customer care; marketing and brand organizations, inclusive of creative, digital marketing, digital experience, customer relationship management and customer insights and analytics. DiTullio joined in 2005 and has held various leadership roles in inventory management, marketing, e-commerce and omni-channel. Prior to joining JOANN, DiTullio held roles in operations and inventory management with JC Penney, Homeplace, Inc. and Cole Vision. DiTullio recently completed a six-year term on the board of Association for Creative Industries. Chris serves on the board of Friends of Breakthrough Schools, a non-profit organization that works to support high-quality public school options for all children, regardless of background or income.

Mike McCooey has been President and CEO of Plaid Enterprises for 29 years. Prior to joining Plaid he held senior management positions with several home decor manufacturers, including wallcoverings, fabric and paint. During his craft industry tenure he has served as Board Chairman for both the ACCI and CHA, where he was presented with the prestigious Meritorious Award of Honor. Mike lives in Atlanta with Sandra, his wife of fifty years and an accomplished artist. In his spare time, he enjoys playing golf, traveling and hanging out with his two grandchildren.

Bob Buchsbam has served as Chief Executive Officer of Blick Art Materials since he joined the company in 1996. He reports to a board of directors comprised of his siblings and cousins. Founded in 1911, Blick is over 100 years old. The company and industry have changed a lot since Bob took the helm. Among the accomplishments of the Blick team during his tenure: simplifying Blick to focus on art supplies through exiting unrelated businesses, restructuring its retail operations through closing nearly 38 out of 40 ill-positioned locations while opening or acquiring 65 new ones, and developing the website dickblick.com which is a category leader in online sales of fine art materials. In addition, Bob serves on the Board of Trustees of The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and is a Board Advisor to Dunn-Edwards Paints, a subsidiary of Nippon Paint USA. Dunn-Edwards operates approximately 120 free-standing paint stores in the southwestern United States. He has served on the Board of NAMTA and the Board of Marwen, a Chicago-based not-for profit that provides professional art education for underserved youth.