Christian served as the Chief Information Officer and Executive Vice President of Americas at Publicis Groupe SA, where he was responsible for the strategic management and delivery of IT support to over 17,000 associates in more than 100 unique lines of business. Prior to Publicis, Mr. Anschuetz served as Vice President and Director of Operations at BCom3. He began his professional career in a broad range of progressive management roles these included; Senior Consultant and Information Security Thought Leader for Sprint Paranet, and Senior Partner/Founder of UpTyme Consulting. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Information Systems from Strayer University. He was a decorated United States Marine Corps officer and a veteran of the First Gulf War.

He has a vital mix of business and technology leadership experience with varied functional skills in product management, corporate business strategy, marketing, sales enablement, software development and customer support for enterprise-class business solutions and services. He has led many multi-million dollars new businesses to penetrate into new markets, industries and segments.

Bessant led the formation of the Council on the Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to address ethical and policy issues related to the development and deployment of this rapidly evolving technology. In addition, she is a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).

Bessant serves on the board of directors of Zurich Insurance Group, is an independent member of the USA Field Hockey board of directors, and is on the advisory board for the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

Prior to joining IBM in 2017, Dr. Biller served as the Chief Manufacturing Scientist & Manufacturing Technology Leader for General Electric creating GE’s Brilliant Factory initiative as well as its Additive Manufacturing software strategy. Earlier positions include General Motors Fellow & Global Group Manager for Manufacturing Systems. He holds a Dipl.-Ingenieur degree from RWTH Aachen, Germany, a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences from Northwestern University along with an MBA in Finance and Strategy from the University of Michigan.

Before joining the team at Syngenta, Mark was the senior manager of innovation at the American Institute of CPAs. He focused on strategic innovation, thought leadership, growth of the profession, and member value.

Swami is well adept at creating environments that foster innovation, collaboration, and risk-taking. He previously spent 12 years at IBM, including working with IBM Watson and rising to the rank of an IBM Distinguished Engineer. As the CTO, he led an organization that drove innovation and also the creation and incubation of AI solutions.

Prior to TransEnterix, Mr. Fernando was Vice President of Innovation and Technology within the International Group at Stryker Corporation, across Stryker’s medical device portfolio. Before joining Stryker, Mr. Fernando held positions at Becton Dickinson & Company as Director, R&D Devices & Global Health, Greater Asia; PerkinElmer Inc. as Director, R&D and CoE Leader in Asia; and Varian, Inc. as Director of Operations/General Manager of the Pharmaceutical Products business unit.

Mr. Fernando earned an MBA from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and MS and BS in Mechanical Engineering with concentrations in Robotics and Automation from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.

His research topics include improving labor productivity, reducing employee turnover, forecasting performance, designing managerial incentives and digitization.

His research has appeared in Management Science, M&SOM, POM and Harvard Business Review. He is a senior editor at POMS and an ad hoc reviewer at Management Science, M&SOM and POMS.

His research has been featured in The New York Times The New Yorker, Forbes and other media outlets.

Dr. Kesavan teaches retail operations and digital operations for MBA students. He has received the “MBA Teaching All Star” award seven times between 2007-2017 and the Weatherspoon Award for Teaching Excellence in the full-time MBA Program in 2018.

He worked for several years at i2 Technologies, where he helped clients deal with supply chain management issues. He has worked with a number of companies including the Gap, USAA, Lowes, Belk, Texas Instruments and Kroger.

He received his doctorate in technology and operations management from Harvard Business School. He also has master’s and bachelor degrees in engineering from University of Massachusetts at Amherst and IIT Madras, India, respectively.

As a research intern with Hewlett-Packard/Columbia University in Palo Alto, she helped develop a unified big-data framework for pricing, customer segmentation, new product introduction and competitive analysis. She also worked as a quantitative researcher in finance industry, where she applied machine learning to predict loan default rates on a peer-to-peer lending platform.
She received her PhD in Business from Columbia Business School. She earned an MS in operations research from Columbia University, and she received her BE in electrical engineering from Tsinghua University.

Dr. Lundblad serves as area chair of finance, associate dean of the PhD Program, director of research at the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise and director of the Center for Excellence in Investment Management. He holds a courtesy appointment as a special-term professor at the People’s Bank of China School of Finance, Tsinghua University in Beijing.
His research has been published in top academic journals such as the Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies and Journal of Financial Economics. He is associate editor at the Journal of Banking and Finance and Financial Management and previously served as an associate editor for the Journal of Finance.

He also served as a financial economist at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C., where he advised the Board of Governors on international financial market developments.

Dr. Lundblad is the recipient of the Executive MBA and OneMBA Teaching Excellence awards.

He received a PhD in financial economics and a master’s degree in economics from Duke University. He earned his BA in economics and English literature with highest honors from Washington University in St. Louis.

His book “Unleashing the Crowd: Collaborative Solutions to Wicked Business and Societal Problems” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) focuses on how organizations can leverage crowds for solving wicked business and societal problems.

Dr. Malhotra has received research grants from the Kenan Institute for Private Enterprise, Society for Information Managers Advanced Practices Council, Dell, Carnegie-Bosche Institute, National Science Foundation, RosettaNet consortium, UNC-Small Grants Program and the Marketing Sciences Institute.

He has consulted, conducted applied research projects or led executive development workshops with ESPN, U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, IBM, ExxonMobil, Primax Properties, Sprint, RosettaNet Consortium, American Golf Corporation, Cisco, ING Direct and Cargill Sweeteners.

He received the best paper award from MIS Quarterly, the top information science journal, in 2001, and the best paper of the year from the Journal of Services Research and Journal of Knowledge Management in 2005. Two of his papers earned the prestigious Society for Information Managers Best Paper Award.
He received his PhD in business administration and his MS in industrial and systems engineering from the University of Southern California. He earned his BE in electronics and communications engineering from the University of Delhi.

Stephen has been with the firm for 16 years in senior roles spanning strategy, product management and technology. Prior to joining the firm, Stephen held leadership positions at two early-stage technology startups and served as a management consultant for Cap Gemini Ernst & Young.

He is a frequent speaker and writer on payments with leading industry publications and associations, including Bloomberg, American Banker, PaymentsJournal, Treasury & Risk and the Association of Financial Professionals.

Stephen earned bachelor’s degrees in computer information systems and marketing from Indiana University and an MBA with distinction and a finance concentration from the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School.

After graduating, Wil went to Apple’s Advanced Technologies Group in Cupertino CA, where he worked on advanced DSP algorithms as well as mixed-signal IC designs for personal computer use. Among other things, Wil was responsible for the architecture and design of the audio subsystems for Apple’s award-winning multimedia computers and some components of Apple’s QuickTime multimedia software suite. In 1995, Wil moved to the joint Apple/IBM/Motorola Design Center in Austin, TX, where he was part of the team that produced several generations of PowerPC CPU designs.

After Apple, Wil joined LifeSize Communications, where he developed breakthrough video and audio conferencing products. Wil was the primary designer of the LifeSize Phone; the world’s most advanced conference telephony system. He led a team of audio and manufacturing engineers to design and ship this ground-breaking product in less than 18 months from the day that he joined the company. LifeSize was acquired by multimedia giant Logitech in 2009.
After LifeSize, Wil founded Rubicon Labs, Inc. and spent the next dozen years developing Rubicon’s Zero-Knowledge IoT security platform. His work resulted in both commercial products as well as a number of publications in the IoT security area. Rubicon’s IoT security platform is currently being used to provide secure identity services scaling over a wide range from very low-power edge devices to high performance server farm applications.

Wil left Rubicon in 2017 to found Bra-Ket Science. He is the holder of 40 issued US patents, several foreign patents and has many more still pending.

He has a vital mix of business and technology leadership experience with varied functional skills in product management, corporate business strategy, marketing, sales enablement, software development and customer support for enterprise-class business solutions and services. He has led many multi-million dollars new businesses to penetrate into new markets, industries and segments.

He is the author of “The Carrot and the Stick: Leveraging Strategic Control for Growth” (University of Toronto Press, 2020) and “Compete Smarter, Not Harder – A Process for Prioritization through Strategic Thinking” (John Wiley & Sons, November 2013).

His numerous scholarly articles have been published in top journals, and he serves on the editorial board of Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Review of Marketing Science and International Journal of Marketing Education.
Dr. Putsis has taught in executive non-degree programs for The Boeing Company, Barclays Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, ABN AMRO, Amcor, British Airways, Baker Hughes International, the U.S. Navy, Matsushita, KONE and Exxon/Mobil.

His consulting clients include The Boeing Company, Morgan Stanley, BASF, Sony Ericsson, Heinz, Dale Earnhardt Incorporated (DEI), Baker Hughes International, McCann-Erickson, Eastman Kodak, DHL Worldwide, Amcor, BBC World Service, Barclays Bank, ABN AMRO, Special Olympics International and British-American Tobacco.

He earned his PhD and MS from Cornell University and his BA from the State University of New York at Binghamton.

Vipin is Founder and CEO of DeepIndigo. DeepIndigo provides Artificial Intelligence (AI) based customized solutions across various industries. DeepIndigo has implemented solutions for Pricing & Portfolio Optimization, Customer Care, and Process Improvements within Healthcare, Telecommunication, Aerospace and Energy. He is Founder and CEO of SimpliFiData. SimpliFiData is a consulting, analytics and technology services firm focused in the area of Financial Services industry. Vipin is the co-founder and CTO of Early Career Advantage, which is an AI driven product for Career advice. Early Career Advantage evaluates the interrelationships among many variables that contribute towards one’s overall wellness and success.

Vipin graduated from Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, where he majored in Electrical Engineering, and Management. He earned a Ph. D. degree in Computer and Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech in Atlanta. He also holds certificates in Management from Georgia Tech in Management and Manufacturing from Georgia Tech.

Louise received her master’s degree in physics from Duke University and Master of Accounting from University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She became a licensed CPA in 2004 and started her own public accounting practice in 2006, where she has offered a discount on payments made with certain cryptocurrencies since January 2018. Louise W. Reed, CPA, PC is a small firm that is transitioning out of small business tax preparation and mitigation and increasingly into litigation support and building Afloat, Inc. Over the course of the past 15 years, Louise has volunteered to beta test a variety of technology solutions for Wolters Kluwer including: Global fx, Axcess, and ePay solution for cryptocurrencies.

He received the 2018 EHI Science Award from the German Retail Institute as well as the 2017 German Science Award from the German Marketing Association for his impactful work to practice.

Dr. Ringel worked for more than 10 years in management consulting with a strong focus on marketing, e-commerce, product development and information technology.
He founded a retail and wholesale business in the hobby industry with own brands and product lines as well as production in China.

He received his PhD (summa cum laude) in marketing from Goethe-University Frankfurt, where he also earned his MBA in alliance with Duke’s Fuqua School of Business. He earned his BA in business and economics from Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University.

Throughout his 20 year entrepreneurial career, Sampson has cofounded startup companies that have overcome the odds by collectively raising more than $20 million in angel and venture capital, created hundreds of new jobs and generated tens of millions in revenue before acquisition or going public. At the beginning of the 21st century, Sampson co-founded, built and sold Multicast Media Technologies (Streamingfaith.com) and EFactor (EFCT).
He was one of three Black co-founders during this era whose high growth technology startups raised over $1 million in angel and venture capital and were subsequently acquired for eight figures. During this time, Sampson also built Intellectual Currency, a world class integrated go-to-market, publishing and advisory firm with clients ranging from major Hollywood film studios, cable networks, tech companies, global corporates, publishers, the United States government, African heads of state and leading Black church denominations. Since 2007, Sampson has worked closely with high growth startups and seed stage venture funds as a selective advisor, investor, and limited partner. His current investment and advisory portfolio include Cross Culture Ventures, TechSquare Capital, Digit, York Exponential, Plum.io, Patientory, The Mentor Method and Momentum Learning.

In 2013, Sampson cofounded Opportunity Hub (OHUB) as a follow up to the highly successful Kingonomics’ book release and large-scale conferences in Atlanta, GA and Washington, D.C. OHUB scaled quickly to become the leading multi-campus coworking space, entrepreneurship center and tech hub featuring over 300 events a year, a startup pre-accelerator, coding boot-camp, and scholarship initiative and angel investing platform for founders from underestimated and under-tapped communities. Over 15,000 people walked through OHUB’s doors each year. From 2015-17, Sampson was a Partner at TechSquare Labs, a tech hub, seed stage venture fund and creator of the $100,000 Atlanta Startup Battle.

Today, TechSquare Labs’ portfolio companies have raised follow on capital of nearly $300 million, are valued at over $1.5 billion, generate over $100 million in annual recurring revenue and employ over 1000 people and growing. He remains the largest minority limited partner in the fund. Today, as Executive Chairman & CEO of Opportunity Hub and OHUB Foundation, Sampson is focused on scaling OHUB as the definitive global future of work, opportunity and wealth creating platform by ensuring that everyone, everywhere has early exposure to tech, startup and venture; in demand technology education, training and talent placement; inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem building; and capital formation. This is driven by the thousands of college and young professional members and growing from hundreds of colleges and universities across America and beyond. OHUB is a supplier, vendor and partner to over 50 tech companies, major corporations, high growth startups, venture funds, municipalities, foundations, associations, colleges and universities and growing.

Current national initiatives include OHUB@Cities, OHUB@Campus, HBCU@SXSW, 100 Black Angels Fund I and DEIS, a new strategy, service and future software platform to operationalize diversity, equity and inclusion across the major divisions of growing enterprises. Sampson is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. and a Professor of Entrepreneurship at Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA. Sampson previously served as the 1st Head of Diversity at Mark Burnett Productions, executive producers of the hit ABC show, ABC’s Sharktank.

A strong believer in philanthropy and its role in social impact and advocacy, Sampson supports and serves on the boards of Artificial Intelligence for All (AI4All), Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC), International Bishops Conference, and GA Technology for All Policy Summit.Sampson was educated at Tulane University, Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine and Keller Graduate School of Management.Sampson resides in Atlanta, GA with his wife and six children.

Dr. Shackelford served as the first associate dean of MBA@UNC, the innovative online MBA program, from 2010 until he became dean on Feb. 1, 2014. He served as senior associate dean for academic affairs from 2003-2007, and associate dean of the Master of Accounting Program from 1998-2002.

He is the former director of the UNC Tax Center, which he founded in 2001.

Dr. Shackelford is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in Cambridge, Mass. He has published widely in accounting, economics, finance and law journals.

He has held visiting faculty positions at Stanford University, Universiteit Maastricht in the Netherlands and Oxford University.

A CPA, he was a senior tax consultant with Arthur Andersen in Boston and Greensboro from 1981-85.

He received his PhD from the University of Michigan and his BS from UNC-Chapel Hill.

Before he began his academic career, he worked as a machine learning engineer for three years in a startup in South Korea. He received his PhD and MA in economics from Princeton University, and his BS in industrial engineering from Seoul National University.

Along the way he picked up engineering degrees from Tennessee Tech (B.S.E.E.) and MIT (S.M., E.E. and Ph.D.). He has spent many years as a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at both Carnegie Mellon University and NC State. While at CMU he served as Associate Head of the ECE Department, and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Engineering. He has been Department Head at NC State since 2009.

His research has included such varied topics as magnetic films, optics, microwaves, wireless channels, antennas, remote labs, and particle physics. Technology for distributing wireless signals through HVAC ducts that Dr. Stancil and his students developed has been installed in such major buildings as Chicago’s Trump Towers and McCormick Place Convention Center. The demonstration of neutrino communications by a multidisciplinary team coordinated by Dr. Stancil was recognized by Physics World Magazine as one of the top 10 Physics Breakthroughs of 2012. Additional recognitions that his work has received have included an IR 100 Award and a Photonics Circle of Excellence Award. Dr. Stancil is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and a past-president of the IEEE Magnetics Society.

He teaches courses in global operations, global execution models and global supply chain strategy and management. Dr. Swaminathan has published more than 100 articles on these topics and is the author of “Indian Economic Superpower: Fiction or Future?”

He has received numerous awards, including the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, George Nicholson Prize, Schwabacher Fellowship and Weatherspoon Distinguished Research and Excellence in Teaching awards.

He has been a principal investigator on grants from the National Science Foundation, Obama-Singh Knowledge Initiative and U.S. Department of Education.

The Production and Operations Management Society (POMS) inducted him as POMS Fellow, a lifetime honor that recognizes exceptional intellectual contributions through research and teaching, in 2015. The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) inducted him as a fellow in 2018.

A fellow of the Academic Leadership Program in the Institute of Arts and Humanities at UNC, Dr. Swaminathan has served UNC Kenan-Flagler in many leadership roles including senior associate dean for academic affairs, associate dean for the Global OneMBA Program and UNC-Tsinghua Dual Degree EMBA Program, director of the Global Business Center and chair of the operations area.

He has also served as vice president of INFORMS and MSOM society and as president of POMS College of Supply Chain Management. He currently serves as a department editor for Management Science and Production and Operations Management journals.

Dr. Swaminathan has consulted with numerous firms over the last two decades, including AGCO, Agilent, CEMEX, Cisco, IBM, Kaiser, McKinsey, Nokia, Public Health Institute, Railinc, Samsung, Sara Lee, Schaeffler Group, TVS Motors, UNICEF and the U.S. Navy.

His work with UNICEF led to major changes in the global supply chain planning and execution for Plumpy’Nut (RUTF) into Africa. His work to configure-to-order assembly using vanilla boxes impacted the electronics industry in the 1990s.

He received his PhD and master’s in industrial administration from GSIA (now Tepper) at Carnegie Mellon University and his bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

Brad is a big proponent of combining the best of what Banks and FinTechs have to offer in order to elevate the ease and effectiveness of banking.

Brad holds a BS in Electric Engineering from North Carolina State University, Summa Cum Laude.

Lauren Weymouth manages Ripple’s University Blockchain Research Initiative. She looks for ways for Ripple to collaborate with leading universities around the world to support and accelerate academic research, technical development and innovation in blockchain, cryptocurrency and digital payments.

Chris received his bachelor’s degree in math and his MBA from the University of Santa Clara. He also has a master’s degree in math at UCLA.

He received a Master of Science in Applied Mathematics from ETH Zurich in 2010, and a Doctor of Sciences in Operations Management from ETH Zurich in 2013 for his thesis on Convex Optimization in Supply Chain Management.