When David Needs Goliath

Gary Dushnitsky  is a Professor of Strategy & Entrepreneurship at London Business School and a Senior Fellow at the Mack Institute for Innovation Management at The Wharton School. His research is at the intersection of entrepreneurship, strategy and innovation. He has published extensively on the shifting landscape of entrepreneurial finance, exploring such topics as accelerators, corporate venture capital and crowdfunding.  

Dushnitsky serves as an editor on two of the Financial Times Top 50 Journals and received several academic awards. In addition to his academic work, he serves on advisory boards and also advises corporations in the Financial Industry, FMCG, and Pharma sectors on a host of corporate venturing issues. 

 Serguei Netessine is the Senior Vice Dean for Innovation and Global Initiatives and the Dhirubhai Ambani Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Wharton School. His research focuses on business model innovation and operational excellence, with applications across retail, technology, and aerospace industries. He has advised Fortune 500 organizations and governments. Netessine is a prolific academic with numerous publications in top journals such as Management Science, Operations Research, and Harvard Business Review. He is also the co-author of The Risk-Driven Business Model (Harvard Business Press), which explores how operational choices shape competitive strategy. In addition to his academic work, he is an active angel investor and serves on the advisory boards of several startups. 

Claudio Garcia is a Senior Industry Fellow at the Mack Institute for Innovation Management at the Wharton School, where he contributes to advancing the practice and understanding of innovation through research and collaboration with corporate partners. He also serves as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at New York University and sits on the advisory boards of several organizations.  

Over the course of his executive career, Claudio held general management and strategic leadership roles across a range of industries—including food and beverage, finance, entertainment, media, and professional services—primarily within private equity-backed companies. This diverse experience led to a 14-year tenure at LHH, a global leader in human capital professional services, where he served on the executive committee, initially as President for Latin America and later as Executive Vice President for Strategy and Corporate Development, leading global initiatives in growth, innovation, and business transformation.  

Claudio is also a regular columnist for Valor Econômico, Brazil’s most respected business and economics newspaper. His articles on strategy, innovation, and human capital have been featured at leading publication outlets such as Harvard Business Review, Strategy+Business, The Corporate Board, Quartz, Thinkers50, and People + Strategy, among others. 

As the Executive Director of the Mack Institute, Dr. Valery Yakubovich focuses on creating synergies among research, teaching, and practice of innovation management within the school and university, promoting dialogue between practitioners and academics, and connecting with corporate and regional partners’ innovation ecosystems. 

In his previous roles, he conducted research, teaching, consulting, and fundraising at major academic and corporate institutions, including the Wharton School, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and the ESSEC Business School in France. 

Dr. Yakubovich’s research on technological and organizational innovations and social networks has appeared in top academic and practitioner journals, including Organization Science, American Sociological Review, Harvard Business Review, California Management Review and MIT Sloan Management Review, and was featured in mass media, including the Financial Times, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.