2023 MIT Platform Strategy Summit

Doors open at 8:15am

• Peter C. Evans – Chief Strategy Officer, McFadyen Digital (Summit Co-chair)
• Annabelle Gawer – Professor, University of Surrey, UK
• Geoffrey Parker – Professor, Dartmouth College & Visiting Scholar, MIT IDE (Summit Co-chair)
• Marshall Van Alstyne – Professor, Boston University & Digital Fellow, MIT IDE (Summit Co-chair)

“Why am I concerned about future unregulated advances in AI?”

• Yoshua Bengio – Professor, Université de Montreal and Founder & Scientific Director, Mila
• Marshall Van Alstyne – Professor, Boston University & Digital Fellow, MIT IDE (Summit Co-chair)

This panel will cover the dramatic changes in machine learning and generative AI. Microsoft alone has dropped $10 Billion on OpenAI, the source of ChatGPT that can pass the bar exam at the 90% level. How will this platform affect competition with other platforms? How will it affect jobs and the future of value creation and value capture?

• Marshall Van Alstyne – Professor, Boston University & Digital Fellow, MIT IDE (Summit Co-chair)
• Christian Freytag – Chief Data & Technology Officer, SAP
• Hamilton Mann –  Group VP of Digital Marketing and Digital Transformation, Thales
• H. James Wilson – Global Managing Director of IT and Business Research, Accenture
• Kaifu Zhang – Group Vice President, Global e-Commerce & Head of AI Initiative, Alibaba

Enjoy a Coffee Break!

As influencer marketing becomes an increasingly significant part of brands’ marketing budgets, social media platforms have come to play a critical role in enabling brands to reach their target audience and build stronger connections with their customers. Influencers also rely heavily on social media platforms to reach their audience but face unique challenges such as algorithm changes, platform bias, and privacy issues, and must constantly adapt to maintain their reach and revenue goals.  At the same time, creators and brands face platform competition, consolidation, and a rapidly changing technology landscape.

Join us for a panel discussion on the future of the creator economy and the role of social media platforms in shaping it. Our panelists will share insights on the key trends shaping influencer marketing, strategies for building successful collaborations between brands and creators, and how to overcome the challenges and opportunities presented by platform competition and consolidation. We’ll explore the impact of AI and other emerging technologies on the creator economy, and discuss best practices for navigating this rapidly evolving landscape.

• Peter C. Evans – Chief Strategy Officer, McFadyen Digital (Summit Co-chair)
• Lindsey Gamble – Associate Director of Influencer Innovation, Mavrck
• Heidi Mika – Director of Influencer Marketing, Mekanism
• Ansley Williams – Head of Influencer Marketing, North America, Ogilvy
• Jordan Yates – Marketing Engineer & Content Creator
  
  

Join Geoffrey Parker and Scott Sandell, Chairman, CEO, & Chief Investment Officer of NEA in this fireside discussion.

Networking lunch lead by The NTWK – stay tuned for more!

• Marina Planas – CEO & Co-Founder, TheNTWK
• Milja van’t Noordende – Head of Growth & Partner, TheNTWK

Digital platforms have come to play a significant role in the global economy.  However, the role has largely been to facilitate the linear economy where resources are extracted, used to create products, and then discarded as waste after their useful life is over.  This model is often referred to as a “take-make-dispose” approach, as it involves a one-way flow of materials from extraction to disposal.  In this session we will be joined by pioneers exploring the potential of platforms to power the circular economy, which is designed to be regenerative and restorative. In this model, resources are kept in use for as long as possible, and waste is minimized through the use of recycling, refurbishment, and reuse. The circular economy aims to create a closed-loop system where products and materials are continually cycled through the economy, reducing the need for new resources and minimizing waste.  Our panelists will examine case studies and best practices from a range of industries to showcase the transformative potential of circular platform business models.  Together, we will explore the challenges and opportunities that arise when developing platform-based circular models, including issues around technology, monetization, policy and stakeholder engagement

• Peter C. Evans – Chief Strategy Officer, McFadyen Digital (Summit Co-chair)
• Kenny Arnold – Senior Manager, Service Design, Ellen MacArthur Foundation
• Maryam Al Mansoori – General Manager, Rebound Plastic Exchange
• Julia Vendramin – CEO & Co-Founder, LABELL-D
• Deborah Weinswig – CEO and Founder, Coresight Research

This panel will cover the growth in logistics and manufacturing data solutions. There has been an explosion of investment to capture data both inside the factory and all along the supply chain. This paves the way to apply machine learning and AI to improve efficiency, reduce costs and energy consumption, and develop a detailed view of the supply network from end to end. What are the opportunities that justify investment? Why has this proven to be such a difficult problem to solve. How will platforms emerge to build on top of the data layer?

• Geoffrey Parker – Professor, Dartmouth College & Visiting Scholar, MIT IDE (Summit Co-chair)
• Inna Kuznetsova – CEO, ToolsGroup
• Jon Sobel – Co-Founder and CEO, Sight Machine

Enjoy a Coffee Break!

If you run a platform, what are the new rules you will need to follow? If you compete with a platform, what new rights do you have? In Europe, the new Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act are in place. In the US, changes to antitrust and content liability laws are working through congress. This creates new obligations for platforms and new right and opportunities for consumers and competitors.

• Marshall Van Alstyne – Professor, Boston University & Digital Fellow, MIT IDE (Summit Co-chair)
• Renée DiResta – Technical Research Manager, Stanford Internet Observatory
• Chris Marchese – Director of Litigation, NetChoice
• Rita Wezenbeek – Director, Platforms Policy and Enforcement, DG CONNECT, European Commission

• Peter C. Evans – Chief Strategy Officer, McFadyen Digital (Summit Co-chair)
• Geoffrey Parker – Professor, Dartmouth College & Visiting Scholar, MIT IDE (Summit Co-chair)
• Marshall Van Alstyne – Professor, Boston University & Digital Fellow, MIT IDE (Summit Co-chair)

Enjoy food and beverage!

Thank you for attending!

Maryam Al Mansoori is the General Manager of Rebound Plastic Exchange, analternative supply chain model facilitating the global trade of used plastic for recycling. The company’s innovative and sustainable solution is supported by the UAE government and backed by the IHC (International Holding Company) of AbuDhabi.

Ms. Al Mansoori is well versed in government policy and policy making, having ledcountry-level strategic programs and initiatives locally and globally. With over three years of experience at the UAE Cabinet, she co-managed the development of a key federal project, Diploma in the Art of Writing Public Policies and

Legislations. With expertise in the fields of economics and the environment, Ms. Al Mansoori has also developed key policies with relevant local stakeholders and ministries which were presented and approved by the Cabinet.

Ms. AlMansoori has had the honour of presenting climate-related issues to HH Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan during Mohamed Bin Zayed Majlis for Future Generations, where she designed an interactive platform for resolving food security related challenges which empowered youth to participate in decision-making processes.

As a UAE national, Ms. Al Mansoori is committed to public service, having dedicated her time during schooland university to volunteer at different government offices. She graduated with a BA in Finance from the American University in Dubai and she holds professional accreditation certificates in Public Policy Analysis from the London School of Economics, Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development from the National University of Singapore as well as Strategic Policy Planning from the UK’s International Centre forParliamentary Studies.

Kenny is a designer and an advocate for the circular economy. In his work he leverages play as an approach to engage people, reframe challenges, and make a positive impact. As Senior Manager of Service Design for North America, at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, he supports leading organizations in their effort to operationalize circular economy principles and strategies. Prior to joining the Foundation, Kenny worked across industries as an innovation consultant and industrial designer to develop new products and services.

Yoshua Bengio is Full Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Operations Research at Université de Montreal, as well as the Founder and Scientific Director of Mila and the Scientific Director of IVADO. Considered one of the world’s leaders in artificial intelligence and deep learning, he is the recipient of the 2018 A.M. Turing Award with Geoff Hinton and Yann LeCun, known as the Nobel prize of computing.

He is a Fellow of both the Royal Society of London and Canada, an Officer of the Order of Canada, Knight of the Legion of Honor of France, and a Canada CIFAR AI Chair.

Renée DiResta is the Technical Research Manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, a cross-disciplinary program of research, teaching and policy engagement for the study of abuse in current information technologies. Renee’s work examines the spread of narratives across social and media networks, how distinct actor types leverage the information ecosystem to exert influence, and how policy, education, and design responses can be used to mitigate manipulative dynamics.

Renée has advised Congress, the State Department, and other academic, civic, and business organizations. At the behest of SSCI, she led outside teams investigating both the Russia-linked Internet Research Agency’s multi-year effort to manipulate American society and elections, and the GRU influence campaign deployed alongside its hack-and-leak operations in the 2016 election. Renée is an Ideas contributor at Wired and The Atlantic, an Emerson Fellow, a 2019 Truman National Security Project fellow, a 2019 Mozilla Fellow in Media, Misinformation, and Trust, a 2017 Presidential Leadership Scholar, and a Council on Foreign Relations term member.

Peter Evans is the Chief Strategy Officer at McFadyen Digital, an advisory firm with deep experience in eCommerce and marketplace development. Peter has over 20 years of experience leading teams in identifying, framing, assessing, and communicating high-priority marketplace trends and disruptions that support business planning and investment prioritization. He has specialized in helping companies see around corners, anticipate key market trends, and craft seminal thought leadership that framed major multi-year growth initiatives.

At KPMG, he was a Partner in the Innovation and Enterprise Solution group responsible for market and emerging technology sensing, innovation portfolio management and business development. To support the firm’s intelligent automation strategy, he led a major study of how the world’s largest enterprises are adopting artificial intelligence.

Prior to joining KPMG, Dr. Evans was Vice President at the Center for Global Enterprise a nonprofit established by Sam Palmisano, former Chairman and CEO of IBM. He was instrumental in framing and delivering on the Center’s research, business education, and global CEO engagements.

Previously, Dr. Evans held key strategy and market intelligence roles at General Electric. He was the lead author of GE’s seminal white paper ‘Industrial Internet: Pushing the Boundaries of Minds and Machines,” which articulated the macro trends behind GE’s shift to a ‘digital industrial’ enterprise and led to the establishment of Predix.

He also worked as an independent consultant for a variety of corporate and government clients, including the US Department of Energy, the OECD and the World Bank.

He received his master’s degree and PhD degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations and an International Academy of Management Fellow. He is the co-chair of the MIT Platform Strategy Summit and the NTWRK Summit in Barcelona, Spain. He is also an Advisory Board member of Marketplace Risk and is the course leader in digital transformation and platform strategy at Caltech Executive Education.

As the Chief Data & Technology Officer within SAP’s digital organization, Christian Freytag is responsible for key strategic initiatives that enable SAP to become a best-run business and the role model of an Intelligent Sustainable Enterprise.  His priorities are translating corporate strategy into ready to use enterprise architecture, evolving SAP’s developer experience by providing services along the entire Development, Security, and Operations lifecycle, and the design, build, and run of mission critical data capabilities, together with their underlying technology platforms.

Lindsey Gamble is the Associate Director of Influencer Innovation at Mavrck, an all-in-one influencer marketing platform. With years of experience working with enterprise consumer brands on creator/influencer marketing campaigns and a deep understanding of the creator economy, Lindsey helps brands experiment and enter new trends in the creator economy

He also writes a weekly newsletter that breaks down news, insights, and trends across the creator economy, creator/influencer marketing, and social media, helping readers cut through the noise and stay up to date on the ever-evolving industries.

Lindsey’s expertise has been recognized by LinkedIn as a Top Voice in the Creator Economy), Business Insider as a Rising Star of the Creator Economy, and Hello Partner as a Top US Partnership Marketing Changemaker. His insights and perspective have also been featured in digital publications like Vogue Business, Digiday, AdWeek, Marketing Brew, The Drum, and more.

Professor Annabelle Gawer is Chaired Professor in Digital Economy and Director of CoDE the Centre of Digital Economy at Surrey Business School, University of Surrey (UK). She is also Visiting Professor of Strategy and Innovation at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School and Visiting Professor at IMD.

A pioneering expert on digital platforms and ecosystems, she has published 4 books and over 40 articles on these topics. She teaches at Harvard Business School in the executive education programme “Competing in the Age of Digital Platforms”, based on her book The Business of Platforms: Strategy in the Age of Digital Competition, Innovation, and Power (coauthored w M Cusumano, MIT and D Yoffie, HBS). She has extensive private consultancy and public policy experience, having served as an Expert for the EU Commission and Parliament, the UK House of Lords, the OECD, and UK government departments. Professor Annabelle Gawer was appointed as an independent digital expert for the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in 2023.

Inna Kuznetsova is the CEO of ToolsGroup, whose innovative AI-powered solutions enable retailers, manufacturers, and distributors to navigate through supply chain uncertainty. TolsGroup customers in over 45 countries and the include Absolute, Harley Davidson, Ford, Gap, Mitsubishi Electric, Toyota, Nike, Best Buy, Karl Lagerfeld and other major chains.

Before assuming her role at ToolsGroup in May 2022 Inna served as CEO of 1010data, the leading provider of cross-enterprise data analytics tools. Prior to joining 1010data Inna was the President and Chief Operating Officer of INTTRA, the largest digital network and analytics provider for ocean shipping industry. Her roles before INTTRA include the Chief Commercial Officer of CEVA Logistics and the global VP, Marketing & Sales, Systems Software at IBM.

As an independent director she currently serves on board of Freightos (NASDAQ: CRGO), a SaaS marketplace platform for international freight. Her prior boards include Global Ports Investments (LSE: GLPR), Sage (LSE: SGE) and Avantida.

Inna completed her MS and Ph.D. study in mathematics at the Moscow State University and MBA in Columbia Business School. She is a frequent speaker on technology-driven innovation and an author of two bestselling career books in Russia.

Hamilton Mann is the Group VP of Digital Marketing and Digital Transformation of Thales.

Mr. Mann is also the President of the Digital Transformation Club of INSEAD Alumni Association France (IAAF), mentor at the MIT Priscilla King Gray (PKG) Center and Senior Lecturer at INSEAD, HEC and EDHEC Business School in Digital Transformation and B2B Marketing.

As the Founder and Host of ‘The Hamilton Mann Conversation’, Mr. Mann is thriving on the mission of democratizing knowledge of what ‘Digital for Good’ is and contribute to enhancing digital citizenship.

As the Director of NetChoice’s Litigation Center, Marchese coordinates and oversees the tech industry’s litigation and legal advocacy at both the state and federal level. His portfolio includes managing NetChoice’s pending litigation against the States of Maryland, Florida, Texas, and California and NetChoice’s amicus program. He focuses on First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, Commerce Clause, Section 230, and antitrust law.

Heidi Mika is the Director of Influencer Marketing at Mekanism, based in New York. She has over 10 years of experience in Public Relations and Influencer Marketing, and has worked with brands such as Adobe, American Express, BACARDI, Playboy, Stella Artois and many more. Heidi is well-versed in fully integrated influencer campaigns, and finding ways to drive success through influencer marketing – whether that is general brand awareness or driving sales. Prior to Mekanism, she has worked at agencies WITHIN, Harrison & Shriftman and PMK-BNC. In her spare time, you can find her on her Peloton, at a concert or exploring the city with her husband and Australian Labradoodle, Houston.

Geoffrey Parker is a professor of engineering at Dartmouth College where he also serves as Director of the Master of Engineering Management Program.

In addition, he is a research fellow and visiting scholar at MIT’s Initiative for the Digital Economy. He received a B.S.E. from Princeton and M.S. and Ph.D. from MIT. Parker has made significant contributions to the field of network economics and strategy as co-developer of the theory of “two-sided” markets. He is co-author of the award-winning book “Platform Revolution.” His current research includes studies of platform business strategy, Internet of Things data governance, and technical/economic systems to integrate distributed energy resources. Parker’s research has been funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the states of Louisiana and New York and numerous corporations.  He serves or has served as associate editor at multiple journals and as a National Science Foundation panelist. Parker is a frequent keynote speaker and advises senior leaders on their organizations’ platform strategies. Before attending MIT, he held positions in engineering and finance at GE. Additional information can be found at ggparker.net and @g2parker.

Scott Sandell is Chairman, CEO and Chief Investment Officer of NEA. Since joining the firm in 1996, Scott has led investments in a wide range of technology companies and has played a role in many industry-transforming businesses including Bloom Energy, Cloudflare, Data Domain, Robinhood, Salesforce.com, Tableau Software, and Workday. Scott is currently the lead independent director of both Cloudflare (NYSE: NET) and Coursera (NYSE: COUR). Scott also serves on the boards of a number of private companies including Bliq, Branch, GoodLeap, Inkitt, Merge and One Concern. He also remains actively involved with the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), where he served as Chairman of the Board from 2014-2015, and is a founding director of Venture Forward, a nonprofit launched by the NVCA with a focus on areas critical to the future and strength of the VC industry – history, education, diversity, equity & inclusion, and research & data. In 2019, he received the NVCA Outstanding Service Award for his significant contributions to the venture community.

Outside of NEA, Scott is currently an Adjunct Lecturer at Stanford University in the Department of Management Science and Engineering in the School of Engineering where he co-teaches a course on principled entrepreneurship. He also previously served on the Board of Advisors of the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth for over a decade (from 2009 – 2021) and is currently an emeritus member.

Before joining NEA, Scott was a product manager at Microsoft. Prior to that, Scott co-founded and ran the European subsidiary of C-ATS Software. He began his career at the Boston Consulting Group. Scott holds an MBA from Stanford and an AB in Engineering Sciences from Dartmouth College.

Jon Sobel is the CEO of Sight Machine Inc. He has served on the management teams of several companies in pioneering industries, including Tesla Motors, SourceForge and, in its early years, Yahoo.

Jon holds an BA from Princeton, a JD from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Wharton.

Julia Vendramin is the CEO and Co-Founder of Labell-d, the world’s first platform providing a Closed-loop fashion ecosystem. With over 15 years of experience in the industry across Marketing, ecommerce and operations.

Deborah Weinswig is the founder and CEO of Coresight Research. Between 2014 to early 2018, Deborah served as Managing Director of Fung Global Retail and Technology (FGRT), the think tank of Fung Group. Previously, she was Managing Director and Head of the Global Staples & Consumer Discretionary team at Citi Research.

Deborah was ranked the #1 analyst by Institutional Investor for 10 years in a row. She was named one of the Top 50 Retail Influencers by Vend in both 2016 and 2017, and received the Asia Retail Congress’s Retail Leadership Award in 2016. She was also recognized by LinkedIn as a top Voice in Retail in 2017 and 2018.

She serves on the board of directors for Goodwill Industries New York/New Jersey, GUESS?, Inc., Kiabi, Street Soccer USA and Xcel Brands, Inc. Deborah is on the advisory board of the World Retail Congress as well as several accelerators.

Deborah is a Certified Public Accountant and holds an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Rita Wezenbeek is Director of Platforms Policy and Enforcement in DG CONNECT. The Platforms Directorate is in charge of policies and regulations applicable to online intermediary services, including the supervision of the implementation and enforcement of the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act (the latter jointly with DG COMP). These two new Regulations establish strong rules to ensure a safe, fair and open platform economy for European citizens and businesses, and give the Commission significant regulatory powers over “gatekeepers” and very large platforms and search engines.
Rita has been Director of Connectivity in DG CONNECT. Its mission is to ensure widespread access to and take-up of gigabit and 5G networks for all citizens and businesses of the European Union, as one of the key targets of the Commission’s Communication “The 2030 Digital Compass: the European way for the Digital Decade”.

Rita joined the European Commission in 2002. Before moving to DG CONNECT in December 2020, she was the head of the units dealing with Anti-Trust and Telecommunications (2017-2020) and Retail Financial Services and Payment Systems (2010-2017) in DG Competition.
Before joining the Commission, Rita worked for sixteen years as a private lawyer, specialized in European and corporate law, in a Dutch/ Belgian law firm. She also was a Member of the Commission on European Integration, an independent advisory body on foreign policy to the Dutch government and Parliament.

Ansley Williams – Head of Influencer Marketing, North America, Ogilvy

PRWeek’s 2023 Women to Watch list

H. James Wilson is global managing director of IT and Business Research at Accenture, where he leads research programs on the impact of technology on work. Jim is co-author of the best-selling, Human + Machine: Reimagining Work in the Age of AI (Harvard Business Review Press), which will be re-released soon with fresh focus on generative AI. He is author or contributing author to twelve books on the impact of technology on business and society, including most recently, Radically Human: How New Technology is Transforming Work and Shaping our Future (HBR Press 2022).

Jim is a frequent contributor to MIT Sloan Management Review, HBR, Wall Street Journal and other management publications.

Jordan Yates is a Marketing Engineer at Knowles Precision Devices helping the team research and deeply understand the roles of specialty ceramic capacitors within power electronics and their position in the market. Before this, she was a sales engineer for an industrial automation and controls distributor and integrator, which is how Jordan entered the manufacturing world after graduating from Texas Tech University with her degree in Mechanical Engineering. Over the years, Jordan’s proclivities towards the sales and marketing side of the Manufacturing & Energy Industry have gained her recognition in the digital space, specifically LinkedIn. Since growing her platform, Jordan has parlayed her hobby of YouTube and content creation into a profitable business where she helps companies create “Fun & Relatable Technical Content”. Jordan is also the host of her own podcast, “Failing For You” & and a brand new podcast on the Oil & Gas Global Network called “The Energy Pipeline”, which is proudly sponsored by Caterpillar.

Kaifu Zhang is currently a Vice President at Alibaba Group and Head of AI Initiatives at Alibaba International Digital Commerce. He was Head of Operations of Taobao Marketplace from 2018 to 2021. Before coming to the industry, he taught at Carnegie Mellon University and Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business. He obtained his PhD in Management from INSEAD. His research interests include market design, multi-sided market and applied analytics.