About the Speakers

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John Paul MacDuffie, Professor of Management; Director, Program on Vehicle and Mobility Innovation (PVMI), Mack Institute of Innovation Management, The Wharton School

Prof. MacDuffie’s research examines vehicle and mobility innovations; the diffusion of lean or flexible production as an alternative to mass production; the impact of human resource systems and work organization on economic performance; collaborative problem-solving within and across firms; the impact of distance on managing human and social capital; the relationship between product and organizational architecture; and how the interaction of strategic choices with industry structure affects competitive dynamics and industry evolution.

Prof. MacDuffie’s global research on the determinants of high-performance manufacturing is featured centrally in the books The Machine That Changed the World and After Lean Production: Evolving Employment Practices in the World Auto Industry. His publications can be found in top academic journals across a wide range of domains, including Global Strategy Journal, Human Relations, Industrial and Corporate Change, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Operations Management, Management Science, Organization Studies, Production and Operations Management, and Strategic Management Journal, and also in practitioner-oriented journals such as California Management Review and Harvard Business Review.

Prof. MacDuffie’s commentaries on the global automotive industry and trends in employment systems are featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Bloomberg Business Week, Fortune, and on National Public Radio and Knowledge@Wharton. He is a founding board member and current President of the Industry Studies Association, co-curator of the Automotive Transformation Map of the World Economic Forum, and a former member of the Automotive Experts Group at the Federal Reserve Bank.

Serguei Netessine, Dhirubhai Ambani Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship; Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions; Senior Vice Dean for Innovation and Global Initiatives

Serguei Netessine is Senior Vice Dean for Innovation and Global Initiatives and Professor at the Operations, Information and Decisions Department at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He lived and worked in Russia, USA, France and Singapore.

Prof. Netessine received BS/MS degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology and, after working for Motorola and Lucent Technologies, he also received MS/Ph.D. degrees in Operations Management from the University of Rochester. His current research focuses on business model innovation and operational excellence and he worked on these topics with numerous government and Fortune-500 organizations including Federal Aviation Administration (USA), Government of Singapore, Lockheed Martin, Procter & Gamble, McDonald’s, Rolls Royce, Comcast, Expedia, ABB and US Air Force. He serves on advisory boards of multiple startup companies and he is an active angel investor. Prof. Netessine also regularly participates in industry and government-organized forums on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, including World Economic Forum in Davos and World Knowledge Forum in Seoul. He was a member of the “Future of the Economy” committee for Singapore Government.

Valery Yakubovich, Executive Director, Mack Institute for Innovation Management; Senior Fellow, Wharton Center for Human Resources

Dr. Valery Yakubovich oversees all the Mack Institute’s programs and day-to-day operations. He focuses on bolstering synergy between the research, teaching, and practice of innovation management within the School; fostering dialogue between corporations and academics; and connecting with our corporate and regional partners’ innovation ecosystems.

Previously, he served as the founding executive director of Penn’s Computational Social Science Lab, where he oversaw the development of an innovative IT, data, and institutional infrastructure for large-scale open collaborative social sciences. He has diverse academic experience ranging from leading a national summer work program for university students in the former Soviet Union to conducting research, teaching, consulting, and fundraising at major academic and corporate institutions in the U.S. and Europe. Professor Yakubovich was on the management faculty of the Wharton School for several years, as well as the ESSEC Business School, where he was a full Professor of Management.

Professor Yakubovich holds an MS in mathematics from Moscow State University, an MA in sociology from the University of Warwick, and a PhD in sociology from Stanford University. His research on organizational innovations and social networks has appeared in top academic and practitioner journals, including American Sociological Review, Human Relations, Organization Science, Harvard Business Review, and California Management Review, and been featured in mass media, including the Financial Times and the New York Times.