Keynotes
Neha Parikh
Neha is a first generation American, lover of orange Tic Tacs and Taco Bell and a prior Wheel of Fortune champion. She is also a global technology leader who has most recently held roles as CEO of Waze and President at Expedia Group, where she was both their youngest and first female President. Neha was named to the inaugural ‘Forbes CEO Next 50 Leaders Set to Revolutionize Business’ and Gold House, the leading AAPI changemaker community recently named Neha to their A100 list honoring the 100 Asian Pacific leaders making the greatest impact on culture and society.
Neha is also on the Board of Directors at Carvana, a leading e-commerce platform changing the way people buy and sell cars. Additionally, Neha services on the advisory council on technology to Francesca Cornelli, Dean of The Kellogg School of Management. Neha holds a Bachelor's degree from The University of Texas (hook ‘em!) and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University (go Cats!). Neha resides in New York City with her awesomely supportive husband and a nearby Taco Bell.
Dale Allsop
Dale Allsopp is a Director of the Ads Responsibility Office at Google NYC. Previously, he served as the Chief of Staff for Google's Shopping & Travel business and managed a Finance organization partnering with our Global Business Organization. Dale also leads the Ads Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging Council and serves on the Black Leadership Advisory Group. He is passionate about giving back to the community; By organizing mentorship sessions, sponsoring business plan competitions, and partnering with local organizations, Dale has demonstrated that leadership and empathy go hand in hand.
Panels
Clicks to Cart: The Evolution of Consumer Tech & E-Commerce
Meya Laraqui
Meya works in Corporate Development and M&A at Duolingo. She previously led M&A deals in eCommerce at Thrasio and Kite and has a background in consumer investment banking at Morgan Stanley. Meya received her MBA from the Wharton School, Class of 2018.
Francesca Migliori
Francesca has over 15 years’ experience in eCommerce, guiding businesses from start-up to rapid growth stage. Her main focus is omnichannel operations and organizational growth.
Francesca spent 12 years in the luxury industry, 10 at Gucci and two at Loro Piana (LVMH). During this time, she lived in the US, Australia, Italy and Hong Kong, building and growing eCommerce in each region. She works effectively in a variety of cultural settings, adapting to each country’s business language, while remaining culturally sensitive.
In 2023, Francesca combined her pre- and post-Wharton experiences and shifted her focus to startups, as a fractional COO.
Kelsey Lubbe
Kelsey Lubbe graduated from Wharton in 2018, where she focused on operations, leadership, and ice hockey. Since completing her MBA, she has held roles in operations and customer experience at Walmart and now in seller strategy at eBay. Throughout her career, Kelsey has been committed to creating exceptional customer experiences, leveraging data-driven insights, and building programs through the strategic use of people, process, and product. She’s excited to share her journey and insights with MBA students interested in business and strategy roles within the tech industry.
Steven Feis
Steven joined Amazon after graduating from Wharton with an MBA in 2016. He has held product roles in various areas of the company and currently leads a technical product and program management team on product-led growth, eCommerce, and engagement, including use of AI, for Ring, an Amazon subsidiary. Other career highlights at Amazon include leading focus experiences within Amazon Glow, a new-to-world device launched with a 4.5/5-star rating, an Amazon first.
Behind the Streams: Career Paths in Media Tech
Dominique Izbicki
Dominique Izbicki leads Product Management for Home Personalization at Spotify, where she shapes content recommendations across music, podcasts, and audiobooks. She is focused on delivering a tailored experience that connects users with the best of Spotify, such as personalized playlists like Daylist and Daily Mix. Prior to Spotify, Dominique was Executive Director of AI Product at Comcast and also held strategic planning roles that helped shape business strategy and product development in emerging technologies. She holds an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BS in Information Sciences and Technology from Pennsylvania State University.
Kevin Tucker
Kevin Tucker is an accomplished technology leader with over a decade of experience in the media and tech space. He is the Global Head of Product Partnerships at YouTube where he leads a team that negotiates and launches strategic partnerships to drive growth for the YouTube Music and Premium products. Prior to YouTube, Kevin held product partnership positions at Spotify where he managed the largest partnerships with consumer electronic platforms and at Vimeo where he drove engagement of the video and livestreaming platform. Kevin holds a BS in Economics from the Wharton School with concentrations in Marketing and Operations Management.
Future of Health: How Tech Innovations are Redefining Care
Greg Szwartz
Greg is the Managing Director at Deloitte Consulting, and Life Sciences Data Science Practice Lead. He has over 20 years of experience putting models and algorithms into healthcare workflow—either strategic decisions around product development or capacity planning or in operational workflow related to care coordination and patient support. Over the last few years, Greg has focused on Healthcare opportunities related to care coordination, network optimization and service excellence.
Tanuj K. Gupta
As the Global VP of Cardiovascular Informatics at Philips, Dr. Tanuj Gupta is managing a portfolio of $200M multi-modality cardiovascular software, virtual imaging, analytics, and enterprise interoperability solutions across 20 countries.
Previously at Cerner, Dr. Gupta led the product management, data science and engineering teams for AI in healthcare, actively pursuing predictive machine learning (ML), ambient voice solutions, natural language understanding (NLU), and semantic interoperability to make healthcare technology more intuitive. He also served in both the population health practice and as the managing director for Cerner’s clinical consulting strategy practice.
Tanuj received his medical degree from Northwestern University, a Bachelor of Science in computer science from Boston University, and an MBA in finance from Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania.
Laura Finney
Laura Finney is the Director of Payer Partnerships at Twentyeight Health, a digital health platform expanding reproductive and sexual healthcare access for underserved communities. She previously led Network Strategy at Oscar Health, the first health insurer built on a full-stack tech platform. Laura is also a Venture Partner with Coyote Ventures, investing in early-stage women’s health companies.
From Algorithms to Outcomes: AI's Role in B2B SaaS
Sunanda Saxena
Ms. Saxena leads generative AI for Hybrid Cloud Transformation Services globally in IBM Consulting. She is reimagining her client’s cloud journeys with AI powered assets and assistants. Prior to this role, she led the organization’s strategy, talent and go-to-market transformation efforts globally following IBM’s recent acquisitions and investments in cloud. She specializes in digital health innovation, helping healthcare and life science executives bring innovative outcomes-driven, patient-centric healthcare solutions to market. She holds an MBA from Wharton (Finance and Strategy), a Master’s in Communications (Quantitative Marketing Research) from Mudra Institute of Communications and a BS (Statistics) from Lady Shri Ram College.
Avanthika Ramesh
Avanthika is a Director of Product at Salesforce AI, where she shapes the future of AI through her leadership on Agentforce and innovation around AI Agents. In addition, Avanthika serves as a keynote speaker and evangelist, working closely with customers to drive AI adoption. Avanthika also led Salesforce's Emerging Tech and Products team, where she spearheaded Web3 innovations and advised top enterprise brands on their Web3 strategies. Avanthika's impact extends across multiple Salesforce teams, where she has contributed to chatbots, conversational AI, Slack integrations, and education technology. Prior to Salesforce, she was a software engineer at a cybersecurity startup.
Responsible AI: Advance ethical and accessible approaches to technology
Justin Fanelli
Mr. Justin Fanelli is the Acting CTO for the Dept of Navy and the Technical Director of PEO Digital.
As CTO, he is chartered to measurably improve technology-driven mission outcomes within the Dept of Navy. As TD, the PEO is chartered to expedite the performant, secure transformation of enterprise IT infrastructure within the Dept of Navy’s acquisition apparatus. He currently serves as an Advisor for Advanced Research Project Agency – Health (ARPA-H). Recent roles for Mr. Fanelli have included, Chief Data Architect for Defense Health, Technical Director for Navy Manpower, Personnel, Training and Education (MPTE), Executive Lead for Navy's Digital Transformation in 5G and DevSecOps. With Dept of Navy roles, Mr Fanelli’s team has recently been recognized for transforming modern service delivery including multi-billion dollars in cost avoidance and leapahead impacts with the Etter Award. Within Defense Healthcare, Mr. Fanelli’s teams delivered the first one-stop data enterprise for revolutionized healthcare and research outcomes. Previously within DOD, Mr. Fanelli has served as a Service Chiefs Fellow at the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), Principal Engineer for Navy Enterprise Business Systems and Chief Systems Engineer for Command and Control (C2).
Sayeed Choudhary
Sayeed Choudhury is the Associate Dean for Digital Infrastructure and Director of the Open Source Programs Office (OSPO) at Carnegie Mellon Libraries and an affiliated faculty member of the Block Center for Technology and Society as well as the Executive Director of the Open Forum for AI.
He is the Director of a Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant for coordination of University OSPOs and a Co-Investigator for the Black Beyond Data Project. Choudhury is a member of the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Board and Human AI Collective Advisory Board - BGV & EAIGG. He is the Software Area Expert and member of the Steering Committee for the Research Data Alliance (RDA) - US.
Deepa Mahidhara
Deepa Mahidhara is Sr. Specialist, Model Governance at Vanguard specifically focused on safety of Gen AI models, Dr. Mahidhara is a seasoned tech leader with several years' experience in leading large data analytics teams at organizations such as United Airlines, PwC, and Publicis Sapient.
Investing in Innovation: The Future of Tech VC
Ash Panchang
Ash is an investor at Bling Capital, focusing on consumer, SaaS, and fintech opportunities.
Previously, Ash was the Director of Operations at Burrow, and led the effort to scale their CX, supply chain and manufacturing functions to 5x the business in 2 years. Prior to that, he led a supply chain analytics team at Peloton, improving last-mile distribution, inventory management, and revenue recognition ahead of the IPO. Before Peloton, Ash helped Blue Apron gain a deeper understanding of its customers while also scaling its CX function through the IPO.
Ash holds an M.S.in Engineering Sciences and an MBA from Harvard and earned a B.S. in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia. During his MBA, Ash was also the investment team lead for Harvard's chapter of the MBA fund.
Brannon Jones
Brannon is an investor at AlleyCorp focusing on early-stage deep tech and robotics companies. Previously, he served as a Lead Manufacturing, Automation, and Integration Engineer at SpaceX, where he contributed to the development of propulsive systems for reusable launch vehicles and Starship’s Raptor concept engine. Brannon led a team in conceptualizing, acquiring, and commissioning a multi-million-dollar robotic factory with cutting-edge production capabilities.
Although born in California, Brannon grew up in Denver and calls Colorado home. He holds a degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University, where he designed and built an air-hockey-playing robot for his thesis work. During his time at Princeton, Brannon played Division-1 football, winning two Ivy League championships. He later received his MBA from Harvard Business School.
Govind Shivkumar
Govind Shivkumar, a Director at Omidyar Network, oversees for-profit investments in late-stage AI and emerging tech companies and funds. He also stewards portfolios and grants in Open-Source Technologies, Data Governance and Public interest AI initiatives. Some of his recent investments / portfolio include Anthropic, EleutherAI, Stanford HAI, Skydeck VC Fund, and Humane Intelligence.
Govind specializes in structuring blended capital funds and has played a key role in establishing a series of Risk and Philanthropic Funds including CoDevelop, FOSS Sustainability Fund, Digital Infrastructure Fund, and Data Empowerment Fund.
Emily Zhen
Emily Zhen is a Principal at Zeal Capital Partners, where she leads healthcare investing and also invests in financial technology and the Future of Work and Learning. Before Zeal, Emily was a multi-stage healthcare venture capital and growth investor at NEA and a healthcare investment banker at Goldman Sachs. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with dual degrees in biology and business from The Wharton School. Outside of work, Emily advises Asian American Pacific Islander founders as part of Gold House Ventures and co-leads the healthcare vertical for Emerging Venture Capitalists Association.
Careers in Tech: Founder Track
Nuno Carrilho Neves
Nuno Carrilho Neves is the Global Head of Growth at Google, where he leads growth transformation initiatives across marketing, sales, and partnerships. With over 20 years of international experience, Nuno has successfully scaled businesses and delivered digital transformation across multiple regions, including the US, Europe, LATAM, and APAC. His roles at Google have included heading strategy, insights, and analytics in the ASEAN market, as well as driving sales growth through innovative solutions. Known for his strategic vision and leadership, Nuno is also an active board member and angel investor, contributing to the growth of startups in Southeast Asia.
Sony Theakanath
Sony is a Director of Product Management at Meta, where he has worked on the messaging, The Fundamental AI Research (FAIR), and the central privacy team team.
He previously founded Asaii, an automated A&R and music analytics platform whose clients were record labels, who used our platform to find artists to sign and to see how their own artists were performing. Asaii was later sold to Apple, where Sony later became Head of Special Projects at Apple Music.
Nirav Murthy
Nirav is the co-founder of Camp Network, the Verifiable IP Network. Camp is built for mass adoption and use cases that people enjoy and engage with every day — entertainment, music, gaming, social, sports and Real World Experiences Previously, Nirav was an investment banking and investor at The Raine Group.
Careers in Tech: Operator Track
Amit Gandhi
Amit Gandhi is the Vice President and Technical Fellow at Airbnb, where he brings his deep expertise in data analysis, econometrics, and research to drive innovation. Previously, Amit was a Professor at The Wharton School and Chief Economist for Microsoft Azure, where he played a key role in shaping economic strategies. His academic background includes a PhD in Econometrics from the University of Chicago, and his work has consistently bridged the gap between economic theory and practical applications in the tech industry. Amit’s leadership at Airbnb continues to shape its economic policies and data-driven initiatives
Carlos Miguel Lasa
Carlos Miguel Lasa is a seasoned technical program manager specializing in autonomous vehicle commercialization, product development, and large-scale program management. At Waymo, he oversees initiatives aimed at launching ride-hailing and delivery services in new markets, with an emphasis on partner integration, fleet management and rider experience. His background includes key program management roles at Cruise and Twitter, a Master’s in Information Management from UC Berkeley, and a BS in Computer Science from the University of the Philippines.
Careers in Tech: Corporate Development and M&A
Praveen Chunduru
Praveen Chunduru is a Principal of M&A Strategy in the Corporate Development team of IBM. His key focus is to strengthen IBM’s strategy in the process of identifying & making a case for acquisitions that IBM should be pursuing across Software and Consulting. He also recently led IBM’s acquisition of a sustainability software company. By background, he comes with experience in credit rating, private debt, and private equity. He is a proud Wharton MBA graduate (class of 2017) and a CFA charterholder.
Workshops
AI at Microsoft and Learning Data Analytics on PowerBI
Srini Ambati
As the Enterprise Solutions Sales Specialist at Microsoft, Srini Ambati plays a crucial role in enabling customers to innovate and modernize their applications using AI, containers, APIs, and DevOps through PaaS, serverless technologies, and DevOps solutions. His expertise is instrumental in helping customers adopt Azure securely and cost-effectively, addressing business/technology blockers, architectural design challenges, and platform limitations. With over 25 years of experience in sales, architecture, design, and development across various industries, he leverages his deep business and technical knowledge to help customers develop and implement impactful solutions that meet their immediate needs and scale to address future trends.
GenAI for Business Leaders
Jon Conradt
Jonathan Conradt was a Principal AI Researcher for AWS and a lecturer for Amazon’s Machine Learning University. He creates AI systems, and teaches curriculum on machine learning and artificial intelligence. He was a director at eBay where he was responsible for machine learning systems for Internet marketing. At Google, he was an engineering product manager for the Chrome web browser, and responsible for the Mac and Linux releases. At Microsoft he was a product manager for a television over IP product. He has eight patents related to ML and marketing, and was one of the creators of the popular management tool StrengthsFinder. Jonathan has volunteered and deployed to support hurricane recovery with the American Red Cross, and is currently the treasurer for the Washington D.C. chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC).
Quantifying the Qualitative
Peter Fader
Peter S. Fader is a professor of marketing at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His expertise centers around the analysis of behavioral data to understand and forecast customer shopping/purchasing activities.
In addition to his various roles and responsibilities at Wharton, Professor Fader co-founded a predictive analytics firm (Zodiac) in 2015, which was sold to Nike in 2018. He then co-founded (and continues to run) Theta Equity Partners to commercialize his more recent work on “customer-based corporate valuation.” He most recently co-founded Incompass Labs to popularize an innovative “incentive-compatible peer assessment system” that quantifies qualitative data.