91ºÚÁÏÍø

Speakers

Steve Tadelis

Professor of Economics, Business and PublicÌýPolicy

UC Berkeley

Steve Tadelis is Professor of Economics, Business and Public Policy and the Sarin Chair in Strategy and Leadership at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business.

His research focuses on e-commerce, industrial organization, incentives and organizations, and procurement contracting. He is also the author of a widely used textbook on game theory.

Before joining Berkeley Haas, he was an Assistant Professor at Stanford University for eight years, after receiving his PhD in Economics from Harvard.

He has also held senior industry roles as Senior Director and Distinguished Economist at eBay Research Labs (2011–2013) and Vice President of Economics and Market Design at Amazon (2016–2017), where he applied economic research methods to product and business problems in collaboration with technologists, machine learning scientists, and business leaders.

Professor Tadelis has also testified as an expert witness in antitrust and consumer protection matters.

Siddharth Kapoor

Vice President, Product Management

Walmart Canada

Siddharth is a seasoned digital business executive with over two decades of experience leading eCommerce and technology-enabled businesses. He is currently the Vice President of Product Management at Walmart Canada where he is responsible for technology product management to drive digital transformation across Walmart Canada's business functions. He previously held leadership roles in product management and marketing at startups as well as large enterprises such as Sam's Club, Dell and Microsoft with experience working in Canada, India, Japan, Australia, Denmark and the United States.

Siddharth is passionate about how organizations can adapt to better serve customers through digital innovation and what it takes to enable this transformation with speed and scale. He is a proponent of lean and agile methodologies for developing and improving programs and processes which deliver sustainable growth and positive customer experience outcomes. He has extensive experience in leveraging customer research, analytics, AI and mobile technologies for developing digital products and services. He has also led a number of organizational initiatives around digital privacy, accessibility and customer experience.

Siddharth is an Electronics Engineer and has a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management from the Indian Institute of Management.

Pinar Yildirim

Associate Professor of Marketing andÌýEconomics

University of Pennsylvania

Pinar Yildirim is an Associate Professor of Marketing and Economics at the Wharton School and an expert specializing in media, technology, and information economics. Combining applied theory and empirical analysis, she studies online platforms, artificial intelligence (AI), privacy, digitization, and social networks. The American Marketing Association (AMA) honored her in 2020 with the Erin Anderson Award, which recognizes a female marketing scholar likely to become a leading academic in the field.

In her research, Professor Yildirim analyzes such topics as advertising and competitive product positioning, the role of choice in two-sided platforms, and the incentive of platforms to moderate content. Professor Yildirim also studies social network design, the impact of advertising on media content, and the use of social network data in credit scoring. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) noted her work on social media and political contributions in 2021 proposed rulemaking involving political programming.

Professor Yildirim's research has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals, including the American Economic Review, Marketing Science, the Journal of Marketing Research, Quantitative Marketing and Economics, and Management Science. She also serves on the editorial boards of Marketing Science and the Journal of Marketing Research. Numerous mainstream media outlets have covered her work, including CNN, Forbes, the New York Times, NPR, Politico, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.

At Wharton, she has received awards for teaching excellence. She teaches undergraduate and M.B.A. courses in marketing research and marketing strategy for technology platforms and executive education modules focused on digital marketing, business in the metaverse economy, and marketing for financial firms.

Professor Yildirim is also a Faculty Research Fellow in the Productivity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).

Stéphane Drouin

Senior Vice-President, Shopper Insights

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Stéphane Drouin has over 35 years of experience in commercialization, strategic business development, and entrepreneurship, with a career marked by outstanding achievements. A graduate in Business Administration from Université Laval, Stéphane is recognized for his expertise in shopper marketing and as an entrepreneur.

His diverse experience includes key leadership roles in marketing, strategic planning, and business development, enabling him to provide strategic guidance to numerous business leaders on corporate strategy, market expansion, and organizational management.

During his 16 years as President and Founder of SVM, a national leader in shopper marketing, he supported many retail and consumer goods leaders in gaining a deeper understanding of consumer behavior along the purchase journey, helping them win more effectively at the point of purchase. From 2019 to 2021, he established the Quebec Center for Retail Innovation and successfully led the Quebec Retail Council, before heading the "Buy Quebec" strategy at Investissement Québec from 2021 to 2024.

Passionate about retail, economic development, and entrepreneurship, his strong commitment is reflected in his mission to support the growth of companies striving to succeed in increasingly complex business environments.

Maxime Cohen

Professor of Retail and Operations Management

91ºÚÁÏÍø

Maxime Cohen is the Scale AI Chair Professor and the Academic Director of the Bensadoun School of Retail Management at 91ºÚÁÏÍø. He serves as Chief AI Scientist at the CIUSSS West-Central Montreal (Jewish General Hospital) and Scientific Director of the non-profit MyOpenCourt.org. He is also a Scientific Advisor in AI at IVADO Labs, and actively advises corporations, retailers, and startups on topics related to AI, pricing, retail, and data science. Before joining 91ºÚÁÏÍø, he was a faculty member at NYU Stern and a scientist at Google AI. He is also the author of the forthcoming book Pricing in the Age of AI (MIT Press, 2026).

Professor Cohen has collaborated with leading organizations including Google AI, Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI, Uber, Waze, Amazon, Expedia, Oracle Retail, IBM, Via, Spotify, Zoom, Aldo Group, Circle K, Loblaws, Canadian Tire, L'Oréal, and Staples, and serves on the advisory board of several startups. His research and teaching have received 40+ awards, including recognition as a Top 2% Most Cited Author, Poets&Quants Best 40-Under-40 MBA Professors, RETHINK Retail's Top Retail Influencers, the MSOM Young Scholar Prize, and Best OM Paper in Management Science.

Heui Jae Choi

PhD Fellow in Information Systems

91ºÚÁÏÍø

Heui Jae Choi is a PhD student in Information Systems at the Desautels Faculty of Management, 91ºÚÁÏÍø. She received her B.A. and M.S. from Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU). Her research interests include the economics of IT, online marketplaces, and user-generated content. Her research has been presented at leading Information Systems conferences, including CIST, AMCIS, and SCECR.

Hamidreza Moshrefi

PhD Fellow in Operations and Retail Management

91ºÚÁÏÍø

Hamidreza Moshrefi is a PhD candidate in Operations and Retail Management at Desautels Faculty of Management, 91ºÚÁÏÍø. Working closely with industry partners and using large-scale customer and operational data, he studies how retailers can recover lost sales, improve customer experience, and increase the efficiency of their operations.

Schedule

The Ritz-Carlton Montréal

1228 Sherbrooke St. West
Montréal, Quebec H3G 1H6