From pricing to credit, from fashion to aviation, analytics govern an ever-increasing part of our lives. Enormous strides in AI and machine learning have allowed these increasingly complex algorithms to leverage ever-larger dataset year after year. When the Coronavirus pandemic erupted earlier this year, many modelling efforts suddenly faced a world that looked nothing like the one they were designed to work in. In this session, our expert panelists will discuss the ways they use data to drive their businesses, the challenges they faced when the pandemic hit, and the way forward as the world adapts to a new normal.
Our panelists will be:
Gregg Chapman, Director of Resorts Revenue Management at the Walt Disney Company
Gregg Chapman, Director of Resorts Revenue Management for Walt Disney Parks, Experiences and Products has been a Disney cast member for 27 years. Throughout his time at Disney, Gregg has helped lead the development and growth of Revenue Management as a science based discipline at Disney, as well as the expansion of analytics into many other lines of business. Currently, his responsibilities include Revenue Management of the 36 domestic US resort hotels. In addition, his team provides analytical support through the use of data collected during the consumer shopping experience at the Disney Call Center as well as the online environment.
Wei Ke, Managing Partner, Simon Kucher
Dr. Wei Ke is a Managing Partner based in Simon-Kucher’s New York and Toronto offices. He currently heads the Financial Services and the Leisure, Travel and Transportation practices in North America, with a consulting focus on product, pricing, marketing and sales strategies. Wei is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and is regularly published in leading industry journals. Wei also holds adjunct appointment for the Quantitative Pricing and Revenue Analytics course at Columbia Business School. Wei received a Ph.D. in Decision, Risk & Operations from Columbia Business School, and a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and Applied Mathematics, summa cum laude, from Columbia University.
Aaron Putnam, Vice President Science & Analytics at the Avis Budget Group
Aaron Putnam is a Pricing, Revenue Management, and Supply Chain Optimization Executive. He has 17 years of proven experience helping companies design/establish optimal business processes, leverage technology to make better decisions, design solutions with the right balance of science and business rules, manage organizational transformation, and demonstrate results post deployment. Prior to the Avis Group, he was a global account executive at PROS Holdings Inc. He holds Bachelors and Masters Degrees from Texas A&M University.
Ren Zhang, Chief Data Scientist at Bank of Montreal
Ren is the Chief Data Scientist for BMO Financial, leading the Enterprise AI CoE, in charge of defining the Enterprise Data Science and Intelligent Process Automation strategy, driving adoption of AI and Machine Learning capabilities to automate processes and deliver better predictive decisions that will help the businesses drive accelerated revenue, cost productivity and customer outcomes.
Ren has over 15 years experience as a senior AI leader within various financial organizations. Prior to BMO Financial, she worked at Prudential Financial, where she was Vice-President and Head of Data Science. Prior to Prudential, Ren was Executive Director of Data Science and Innovation at Commonwealth Bank of Australia. And at American Express, she held progressively senior leader roles, ranging from credit risk management, to loyalty analytics, to fraud risk strategy, and to risk capabilities, with her last being Vice-President, Risk and Information Management of Enterprise Growth. Ren holds a PhD in Statistics from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Moderator: Daniel Guetta, Associate Professor of Professional Practice, CBS
Daniel Guetta is an Associate Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia Business School, and Director of the Business Analytics initiative, a joint initiative with Columbia Engineering. His research and teaching focuses on the ways companies can harness the power of data and analytics to drive value. Prior to joining the faculty at Columbia, he was a data scientist and engagement manager at Palantir Technologies. He completed his undergraduate studies in physics and mathematics at Cambridge and MIT, and holds a PhD in Operations Research from the Columbia Business School.