Our International Advisory Board consists of esteemed scholars in their field of disciplines. The role of the Advisory Board is very important to us as they provide invaluable feedback and guidance to speakers and help steer speaker’s presentation content to the required standards and relevance.Aside from reviewing submitted abstracts, our Advisory Board also contributes to keynote speeches, chairing sessions, facilitating panel discussions or conduct brainstorming workshops.
Jasmeet Sethi is a Regional Head – Insights for Ericsson ConsumerLab, the consumer insights division within Ericsson group. He is responsible for driving and managing consumer insights function in India and has been instrumental in building and managing regional intelligence on emerging market consumers which includes identification and translation of consumer needs, insights and behaviors to guide strategy, communication, innovation and marketing initiatives across Ericsson’s various business units.
He has also been responsible for driving the Consumer Experience Measurement program at Ericsson and introducing and integrating new methodologies like social media listening and on-device metering to understand true consumer experience in the wireless industry. Jasmeet has over 11 years of experience across wide variety of industries including telecom, technology, media and financial services where has worked on a very wide range of insight, strategy and brand development projects.
Guy joined Kantar in 1998 and took up his current role focused on Mobile in 2008. Guy is currently responsible for the mobile data collection strategy of the Kantar group. He has overseen the development of Kantar systems to enable mobile research and continues to spearhead the exploration of emerging technologies and techniques.
He also facilitates group-wide collaboration and fosters collective learning, acting as both mobile evangelist and knowledge hub; he works closely with researchers to help them fully explore and exploit the product potential. Prior to joining Kantar Guy completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in Architecture at the University of Kent.
Tico Blumenthal is the Global Customer Insights Manager with Medtronic, and is a member of the founding team at Medtronic’s Shanghai Innovation Center. His responsibilities include developing the Innovation Center team’s ability to identify unmet medical needs and translate these insights into the commercialization of meaningful and effective medical innovations.
He is a strong advocate for intrapreneurship within large organizations, design thinking and the Biodesign process. In his nine years with Medtronic, Tico has held roles of increasing responsibilities in Sales, Technology Management, Product Planning and Global Marketing in the Cardiac Rhythm Disease Management, Corporate and China business units, and he works across all of Medtronic’s current device categories.
Tico holds a Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Engineering and Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering from Dartmouth College and the Thayer School of Engineering, and has lived in Shanghai for the last 19 months.
Ryan Backer currently leads General Mills’ Emerging Technologies team within the company’s Global Consumer Insights function (Minneapolis, MN). He has been with GMI for five years, all in Insights related roles. His previous roles focused on Channel, Category & Breakthrough Product Innovation.
Prior to GMI, Ryan served as a Medicinal Chemistry Research Scientist at Eli Lilly Pharmaceuticals in Indianapolis, IN. He holds a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of St. Thomas (St. Paul, MN) and an M.B.A. from the Carlson School of Management (University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN).
Imran Anwar is a highly accomplished New York, USA, based global business, media and technology thought-leader, well known for strong vision, strategy and execution of bold new innovative ventures in multiple industries on two continents.
He is an experienced “serial parallel entrepreneur”; corporate innovator; global strategy, management, marketing & operations execution leader who is equally well known for his thought leadership in cloud computing, location-aware eCommerce, micro-payments and the power of big data, social media, mobility and cloud to transform market research and marketing. His experience at world leading companies like Microsoft empowers him to enable corporate innovation, leveraging technology as a strategic differentiator and competitive advantage for companies, segments and entire industries.
A published writer & journalist, radio & TV commentator and talk show guest on CNN, Fox News, BBC, Voice of America, News12, WWRL, ETV he has also been an anchor/host on politics, global affairs & business.
His 1980 slogan, “Change The World; Bit By Bit, Byte By Byte”™, is even more relevant today and is often quoted by others.
Massimo Cealti, 25 years of experience in Market Research, Consumer Strategy and Insight is currently Vice President Global Consumer Knowledge for the Scent& Care Unit at Symrise, a global Fragrance and Flavours Company (www.symrise.com), helping clients grow their business bringing the consumer voice to fragrance development.
Previous experiences include The Coca-Cola Company, Nestlé, McDonald’s and leading research agencies (IPSOS, Research International). He holds an M.S. in Business Management from Luigi Bocconi University in Milan.
As a Packaging and Design Insights Manager for Mondelēz International, Claudia Del Lucchese is responsible for providing strategic insights to improve on-shelf performance of products. Through her work she has shifted the research focus to include the entire lifecycle of packaging, from first moment of truth on shelf to usage and disposal.
Prior to this role, Claudia was the Consumer Innovation leader for Kraft Foods, responsible for bringing innovation into consumer research for long-term technology development and cross-category platforms within R&D.
Claudia’s diverse education background includes some courses in Journalism, a MSc in Food Engineering and a MA in Marketing.