Keynote Speakers

Maryam Alavi is the Dean of Scheller College of Business at external pageGeorgia Techcall_made. As an expert in digital innovations and strategic IT applications, Dr. Alavi has authored numerous published papers and served on the editorial boards of several prestigious business and technology journals. She is a thought leader on IT strategy as well as a globally-recognized educator and advisor with extensive experience in leadership development and organizational capability building for a digital age.

Dean Alavi has consulted with organizations including AT&T, IBM, KPMG, Marriott Corporation, Sodexo, the American College of Physicians, International Association for Management Education, and the World Bank. Her international work experience includes teaching graduate and executive development programs in Europe, North Africa, and Asia.

Samer Faraj holds the Canada Research Chair in Technology, Management & Healthcare at the Desautels Faculty of Management at external pageMcGill Universitycall_made. He is head of the research group on Complex Collaboration and serves as director of the Faculty’s PhD program. He studies how complex collaboration is sustained and innovation emerges in a variety of settings such as: trauma care, hospital care, urgent care clinics, open source, and online communities. He is broadly interested in how innovation is transforming organizations and allowing new forms of organizing to emerge.

He has published over 110 journal articles, refereed proceedings, and book chapters in outlets such as: Management Science, Organization Science, MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Journal of Applied Psychology, Business Horizon, and Annals of Emergency Medicine. He has recently completed terms as Senior Editor at Organization Science (2006-2012) and at Information Systems Research (2012-2014). He has won multiple best paper awards; most recently the 2016 AOM-OCIS Best Published paper award, the AIS 2012 best Published Paper Award as well as the 2013 Desautels Best Doctoral Advisor award. He has been a visiting professor at HEC-Paris, VU University (Amsterdam) and the American University of Beirut.  

Paul Leonardi (Ph.D., Stanford University) is the Duca Family Professor of Technology Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is also the Investment Group of Santa Barbara Founding Director of the Master of Technology Management Program. Leonardi’s research focuses on how companies can design their organizational networks and implement new technologies to more effectively create and share knowledge. He is particularly interested in how data intensive technologies, such as simulation and social media tools, enable new ways to access, store, and share information; how the new sources of information these technologies provide can change work routines and communication partners; and how shifts in employees’ work and communication alter the nature of an organization's expertise.

Professor Levina has been with NYU Stern for over than ten years. Prof. Levina's main research interest is in understanding how people span organizational, professional, cultural and other boundaries in the process of building and using new technology. She uses qualitative and quantitative methods and a range of social and organizational theories in her work. She currently studies boundary spanning in the context of open innovation, crowdsourcing, and offshoring of professional services. Her research has been published in ISR, MIS Quarterly, Organization Science, Journal of Management Information Systems, Academy of Management Journal, Decision Sciences Journal, and other outlets. She received two dissertation awards from ICIS and the Academy of Management conferences and best paper of the track award at ICIS (2006). In 2011, she received a National Science Foundation VOSS Collaborative Grant and New York University Challenge Grant to study open innovation and crowdsourcing intermediaries. In 2007, she received the IBM SUR faculty award to study global sourcing. In 2005, she was awarded the prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Industry Studies Fellowship to investigate boundary spanning in the global IT services industry. Before joining NYU Stern, Professor Levina worked as a senior information architect at Bremer Associates, Inc. and as an applications systems analyst at PSI International.

Ann Majchrzak is the Associates of USC Chair of Business Administration for the Marshall School of Business at the external pageUniversity of Southern Californiacall_made. She is a Professor of Digital Innovation in the Department of Data Sciences and Operations. She is a Senior Scholar and Fellow of the Association for Information Systems, awarded for “making an outstanding contribution to the I.S. discipline in research, teaching, and service”. In 2015, she received a lifetime service award from the Organizational Communication and Information Systems Division of the Academy of Management.

She has been a member of 3 National Research Council Committees. She is the longest running Senior Editor for Organization Science, and has held editing positions with MIS Quarterly. She publishes in top academic (Management Science, Organization Science, Information Systems Research, MIS Quarterly) as well as top practitioner journals (Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, California Management Review). She has held concurrent appointments as a research mentor and visiting professor at Esade Business School, Ramon Llull University, Barcelona; LUISS University, Rome Department of Business and Management in the areas of Innovation and Organization; and Stevens Institute of Technology. She is also an external expert for the Information Systems and Innovation Group, Department of Management at the London School of Economics.

Phanish Puranam is Roland Berger Chair Professor of Strategy & Organization Design at external pageINSEADcall_made.

Phanish’s research focuses on organization design and corporate strategy. Phanish has published his research extensively in internationally reputed academic journals and has served in senior editorial roles in such journals. His research has won international awards and competitive grants awarded across the social and natural sciences. He has also served in advisory/training roles with several global corporations as well as public sector agencies. 

His book “The Microstructure of Organizations” (Oxford University Press, 2018) offers researchers a new perspective on organization design. Phanish’s books for practitioners include "Corporate Strategy: Tools for analysis and decisions" (co-authored with Bart Vanneste, Cambridge University Press, 2016) and “India Inside” (co-authored with Nirmalya Kumar, Harvard Business Review Press, 2012), which won critical acclaim for its balanced look at the prospect of India emerging as a global hub for innovation.

Phanish obtained his PhD at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 2001 and was on the faculty of London Business School till 2012. He served there as School Chair Professor of Strategy & Entrepreneurship, and directed the School’s PhD programme as well as the Aditya Birla India Centre.