Automatic Merchandiser serves the business management, marketing, technology and product information needs of its readers including vending operators, coffee service operators, product brokers, and product and equipment distributors in print.
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Pros to Know Team of the Year, Cantaloupe Systems hallenges are synonymous with opportunity at Can- taloupe Systems. This year the Cantaloupe team noticed that the industry was faced with three primary challenges: busi- ness diversifcation, consumer engagement and employee engagement. "But we viewed them as opportunities for everyone," said Anant Agrawal, co-founder and CMO of Canta- loupe Systems, located in San Francisco, CA. The Cantaloupe Systems team includes Agrawal; Mandeep Arora, co-founder and CEO; Sarah Rankin, COO; Tammy Baker, VP of Engineer- ing; Justin Grant, VP of Product; Mark Kronenberg, VP of VMS; and Igor Schtein, Director of Engineering, SaaS Solutions, alongside the increasing sixty- fve person Cantaloupe team. To meet those challenges, Cantaloupe focused its business efforts on bringing operators a technology and services plat- form that would offer advanced logistics, analytics and payment applications to a new diversifed operating model with the use of cloud and mobile based technolo- gies. And the company wanted their operators to come into the 21st century. "Business soft- ware should be intuitive to use, and be available to collaborate with anytime, anywhere," said Agrawal. In 2014 Cantaloupe Systems took this challenge as an opportunity to invest in a plat- form that would offer business solutions for cashless, analytics and VMS through the use of mobile devices and online-based applications where information is integrated, available on any device and based on real time information both in the offce and in the feld. "We don't just sell technol- ogy, we are selling a new busi- ness model that is built on the premise that real time informa- tion and accurate information is absolutely critical in the evolv- ing automated retail channels," said Agrawal. "This informa- tion should be easily action- able through tools that the new generations are used to using, like cloud and mobile." He con- tinued, "We spend a consider- able amount of time evolving our roadmap and solution set to blend the needs of our customers who are the experts in vending, retail success stories in outside channels, and the best technolo- gies being adopted by the work- ers of tomorrow, today." C Joe Hessling, CEO, 365 Retail Markets Since 2009 Hessling has been pioneering innovation in the vending industry through his leadership of 365 Retail Mar- kets. Hessling is a serial entrepreneur and an active seed and start-up investor, most notably in Down, Sprint.ly, AirVend and QuickLeft. Hessling looks forward to tack- ling industry challenges such as commis- sions and low-pricing selling and applying management skills, wisdom and innovation to bring together the best of vending, food- service and hospitality technology. Rinaldo Spinella, Executive Vice President of Strategic Accounts, Apriva Rinaldo Spinella is a key tech- nologist and driver of much of Apriva's technological leader- ship in the industry. He brings more than 40 years of experience in the development of hardware and software products and ser- vices in the technology industry to Apriva, and has been awarded 11 patents to date. His latest focus is on incorporating the evolving mobile technology into the vend- ing industry. Jim Collins, Director of Engineering, Automated Merchandising Systems With more than 20 years in the vending industry, Collins understands the challenges that the industry faces from regulations being proposed and implemented by agencies at the federal level. Collins is an expert in the energy consumption and refrigeration areas and has spent time educating NAMA's staff on the potential impact of proposed federal regulations on the industry and the manu- facturing process of vending machines. His knowledge has allowed NAMA staff to pro- vide comments on proposed regulations that are based in sound science and professional engineering standards. 2014 Individual Pros to Know (Listed alphabetically by company) Hessling Spinella Collins Arora Agrawal Rankin Kronenberg Schtein Grant Baker December 2014 VendingMarketWatch.com Automatic Merchandiser 15