Panel discussion: Growing vape retail - Digital sales, brand growth & compliance
Vape retailers and brands face growing pressure to drive sales, build customer trust and adapt to evolving regulations across physical and digital channels. This panel explores how to strengthen product positioning, understand changing consumer behaviour and use digital marketing, content and customer engagement to build brand awareness and encourage repeat purchases. Panellists will share insights on reaching the right audiences, measuring marketing effectiveness, expanding into new markets and navigating the commercial and regulatory challenges of responsible marketing. Discover how retailers and brands can turn customer engagement into sustainable growth while balancing profitability, compliance and public health responsibilities across the Middle East and global markets.
Session Speakers
John has a strong background and reputation in the European e-cigarette industry, having held senior executive positions in some of the US and Europe’s biggest companies. As Managing Director of Dyflin Group Consulting, he advises many leading industry analysts, financial institutions and media organisations looking at the vaping and CBD sectors. John is also Director-General and one of the founders of the UK Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA), the UK’s largest vaping Industry association and has advised the UK governments All Party Parliamentary Group on Vaping as well as giving evidence before the UK Science & Technology Committee investigation into the Vaping industry and the Australian Parliaments review on vaping.
John regularly appears on national television, radio as well as national and international print media. John is a popular guest speaker at many of the world’s leading conventions.
📍MENA's Leading Vape Influencer &Business Consultant🏆Award-Winning Vape Expert 23 & 24🚀Helping Brands Grow & Dominate theVape Industry
With a professional background in banking and a deep-rooted career in the vape industry since 2016, Ebn Malek has evolved from content creation and brand promotion into a strategic role within the global vaping industry.
Today, he works as an Industry Partner and Brand Strategy & Relations Consultant, supporting international brands in understanding, entering, and developing within MENA and emerging markets.
His role goes beyond traditional marketing. Ebn Malek works closely with brands to assess market opportunities, understand local consumer behavior, identify the right products for each market, and build effective strategies that connect brands, distributors, retailers, and consumers.
Through a combination of digital influence, on-ground market presence, retail relationships, and cross-country industry connections, he helps brands translate their global vision into strategies that work locally. Ebn Malek has worked across multiple markets and regularly collaborates with manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and industry stakeholders, providing practical market insights and strategic direction based on real-world market experience.
His approach is simple: understand the market first, build the right relationships, and create strategies that deliver sustainable growth.
Merrijantij Punguan Pintaria serves as the Director of Beverage, Tobacco Products, and Refreshment Materials Industries at Indonesia's Ministry of Industry. She is a career government official with experience in industrial policy, regulatory affairs, and the development of Indonesia's agro-industrial sector.
Throughout her career, she has held strategic leadership positions within the Ministry, including previously serving as Director of Forest Products and Plantation Industries. Her professional experience encompasses industrial development, policy implementation, stakeholder coordination, and initiatives aimed at strengthening the competitiveness of domestic manufacturing.
In her current role, she is involved in addressing regulatory developments and industrial challenges affecting Indonesia's tobacco and electronic cigarette sectors, including considerations surrounding regulatory compliance, domestic production, and industry sustainability.
Her experience brings a government and industrial policy perspective to discussions on regulatory disruption, supply chain resilience, international trade, and market access within the evolving global nicotine industry.
