Retail supply chains are being transformed to adopt customer-centric and demand-driven strategies and focus on future capabilities that adapt to the very dynamic environment. This session will discuss the different opportunities behind these transformations in the retail distribution. Particularly we will focus on (1) collaborating with a variety of stakeholders along scalable an smart digital platforms when distributing their products to the ever changing customers and (2) Implementing omnichannel distribution strategies, discussing the main challenges in omnichannel and how the growth of ecommerce is impacting the supply chains.
Dr. Maria Jesus Saenz is the Director of the research area on Digital Supply Chain Transformation at the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, as Research Scientist. The primary research examines new collaborative paradigms that arise while implementing different new digital technologies in supply chains. Our research domains are multidimensional collaboration, digital supply chain capabilities and AI in supply chains. We apply quantitative research methodologies in order to assess how data-driven ecosystems create value.
Dr. Saenz also serves as the Executive Director of the MIT Supply Chain Management Blended Masters Program, an elite MIT degree that allows learners to combine the MITx MicroMasters credential with one+ semester at MIT.
Dr. Saenz teaches various courses at the Master, Ph.D., and Executive Education levels on Digital Transformation, Supply Chain Management, Collaboration, Risks, Resilience, and Project Management. Regarding her education, Dr. Saenz is certified in Participant Centered Learning by Harvard Business School. She received Cum Laude and the Outstanding Doctoral Award for her Ph.D. in Manufacturing and Design Engineering from the University of Zaragoza, where she previously obtained her M.Sc. in Industrial Engineering while she also studied Mathematics Sciences for several years. In 2003, she received her tenure as Associate Professor in the School of Engineering at the University of Zaragoza. In 2004, she joined the newly-formed research institute MIT Zaragoza Logistics Center as Professor, and she has also served the Center as its Executive Director. She was also the Director of the Spanish Center of Excellence in Logistics. Dr. Saenz has also led various international research projects for the European Commission, as well as for companies on Supply Chain Management innovation, such as P&G, Carrefour, Clariant, Dell, DHL, Leroy Merlin, and Caterpillar. She is a co-author of more than 80 publications, including books and articles in leading international Journals. Her knowledge transfer work has received 15 awards, and her research was cited in the media, including MIT Sloan Management Review, Forbes, Financial Times Press, and Supply Chain Management Review. She also regularly interacts with business leaders in more than 15 countries.
Dr. Eva Ponce is the Director of the research area on Omnichannel Distribution Strategies at the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics, as Research Scientist. Her current research focus is the design of omnichannel distribution strategies that integrates online and offline channels. Her main focus is to help retailers, and manufacturers to understand how e-commerce growth and mobile devices are affecting and transforming their supply chains. She also leads research initiatives on Circular Supply Chains, Reverse Logistics and Closed-Loop Supply Chains.
Dr. Ponce is the Executive Director of the MITx MicroMasters Program in Supply Chain Management. She leads the MicroMasters in SCM team and oversees the five-massive online MITx courses in Supply Chain Management (CTL.SCx courses) plus the Comprehensive Final Exam (CTL.CFx) that make up the MicroMasters Program. The courses are attended by tens of thousands of students in open enrollment from more than 190 countries.
Currently, Dr. Ponce is leading an innovative research line in Online Education at MIT, which is transforming supply chain management education around the world. Dr. Ponce and her team received in 2018 the Irwin Sizer Award for the 'Most Significant Improvement to MIT Education'. Dr. Ponce has over nineteen years of experience in teaching and research in supply chain management and quantitative models for industrial engineering. She teaches courses in Sustainable Supply Chains, Digital Supply Chains and Supply Chain Management at Master, PhD and Executive Education level. She is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Management Program at Harvard Extension School. In 2008, she received her tenure as an Associate Professor in Supply Chain Management and Logistics at the School of Industrial Engineering of the Technical University of Madrid (UPM).
Dr. Ponce received her PhD in Industrial Engineering from Carlos III University of Madrid in 2002. Her dissertation received two awards with special distinction. In 2000, she was granted with a pre-doctoral research stay in the Hass School of Business, University of California, and in 2011, she was a visiting professor at MIT CTL. She joined MIT CTL in 2016. She has an active publication record, including journal papers, conference proceedings and refereed abstracts.
Maria Jesus Saenz and Eva Ponce
Nara Logics: Digital Flywheel Platform for Retail
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Aulera: Create and Leverage Digital Identities for Physical Products
Sparkdit: Human-like intelligence to boost conversion rates with best recommendations
Jaxon: AI for data augmentation and fully-trained, highly-accurate models optimizing classifications and predictions
Jana Eggers is CEO of the neuroscience-inspired artificial intelligence platform company, Nara Logics. Eggers is an experienced tech exec focused on inspiring teams to build great products. Eggers has started and grown companies and led large organizations at public companies. She is active in customer-inspired innovation, the artificial intelligence industry, the Autonomy/Mastery/Purpose-style leadership, as well as running and triathlons. Eggers has held technology and executive positions at Intuit, Blackbaud, Los Alamos National Laboratory (computational chemistry and super computing), Basis Technology (internationalization technology), Lycos, American Airlines, Spreadshirt (ecomm), and multiple startups.
Lucas, CEO of Prisma, founded his first software company at the age of 22, where he won contracts with ExxonMobil, Arcor, ReckittBenckiser, Philips, WorldBank and Greenpeace, developing and implementing systems in more than 15 countries. At age 25, he was recognized by the government of South Korea as "next generation outstanding leader in the IT Industry." He received a grant from the World Bank to develop the first NGO donation platform that gave rise to the Desarrollar Foundation, being one of the founding members. He created a Business Simulation Game for the Retail industry that was used to train executives from companies around the world. This experience was the starting point for the development of Prisma, IANTECH's main product. In 2015, after completing his MBA at M.I.T., Lucas returned to Buenos Aires to co-found Prisma with Damian Barletta (CTO). We decided to start Prisma with the mission to reduce the gap between data-analysis and decision-making. PRISMA is a SaaS Enterprise platform that provides Retailers with a proven process to optimise: Prices, Promotions, Inventory, Assortment and Space within the same platform. We combine powerful AI algorithms, business rules and domain knowledge to provide suggestions and optimise the key variables of Retailers. It is helping major retailers in Latin America such as Cencosud, Oxxo, Supermercados DIA, Supermercados TaTa, YPF, Farmacias La Rebaja, Grupo Rey Panamá, among others.
Nathan has a diverse background spanning military service, management consulting, and entrepreneurship. As a Naval Officer, Nathan has been an instructor in the Navy’s nuclear power program, an officer aboard a nuclear fast attack submarine, and has participated in several overseas exercises in Italy and South Korea. He has recently returned from a 9 month reservist deployment to Somali where he focused on the US Embassy’s program to restore security through improvements to infrastructure, logistics, and security force capabilities, for which he was awarded a Bronze Star.
After leaving active duty military service he joined management consulting firm, McKinsey, where he worked on procurement challenges for high tech companies, manufacturing optimization for heavy equipment production lines, and bringing Robotic Process Automation technologies to the Insurance industry.
Nathan transitioned from management consulting to entrepreneurship to co-found Aulera. With Aulera he has helped raise venture financing, traveled to Bangladesh to design and implement the digital serialization process into manufacturing lines, and has put the Aulera technology to work in over a quarter of a million jackets. Nathan holds a Masters of Engineering in Logistics from MIT, a Masters in Engineering Management from Old Dominion University, as well as a Bachelors of Engineering in Electrical Engineering from Auburn University.
Fadi Micaelian, founder and CEO of Sparkdit, is an entrepreneur with a seasoned background in enterprise software. He served over the past three decades in several executive positions at industry leaders like Oracle, BroadVision, Intellectual Ventures, ViewStar (now OpenText), DataBeam (now IBM) and Element Data. Most prominently, he was the founder of Auguri Corporation where he served as its CEO for 13 years, leading it to a successful acquisition.
Fadi is also a distinguished scholar and an inventor, who has been repeatedly published, and was awarded several patents by the USPTO, in AI/ML, Cloud, Big Data, Analytics, Decision and IoT. Author of early inventions in the field of AI/ML, his patents, considered essential, rated 90-100 percentile are highly cited by Google, Microsoft, eBay, Oracle, EMC, Yahoo, GE, etc.
He is passionate about Technology, Physics and Track and Field. Fadi holds a BS of Physics, a BE of Engineering, and obtained an MS in Engineering from MIT, and an MBA from INSEAD.
Scott is the Co-Founder/CEO of Jaxon, an AI-powered training workbench for building custom, domain-specific machine learning applications. Jaxon eliminates the biggest bottleneck in AI today by automating the process of labeling data, allowing data science teams to build fully-trained models in days vs months. Scott is a serial technologist and patented inventor with a penchant for pushing the envelope of innovation. Scott was a pioneer in the wireless imaging industry, having created one of the first systems able to send images and data to mobile devices for Federal, State, and Local First Responders. Just prior to Jaxon, Scott grew and sold a machine learning consulting firm to over 100 consultants called BigR.io. Scott holds a Bachelor of Science from Union College, an MBA from Northeastern University, and a Master of Science from the Fulton School of Engineering at Arizona State University with coursework performed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).