2023-2024 Speakers

Supported by a generous gift from the Dimitrios Smyrnios family

Min Gong Friday, September 15, 2023 3:15-4:30pm BU 123 Min Gong is the science lead for Amazon Seller Fee where she leads a group of economists, applied scientists, and data scientists. The team provides scientific support for all fee-related decisions ($100B+) via economic modeling, causal inference, machine learning, and decision science, among others. Prior to Amazon, Gong led data science and behavioral science teams at Walmart Global Tech, and worked as an economist at the RAND corporation. Dr. Gong earned her Ph.D. in 2007 from the University of Wyoming in economics, a world-class doctoral program celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

Karen Kemmerer Monday, October 16, 2023 12:00pm-1:15pm BU 123 Karen Kemmerer is a retired Vice President of Business Communications Systems at AT&T and Lucent Technologies. She earned an MBA from New York University. Kemmerer worked in marketing, sales, and P&L management positions. Her accomplishments included designing the structure for AT&T’s first sales force upon divestiture, bringing voice mail and digital networking to business customers in the 1980’s, managing the $5B P&L of business communications equipment including PBX’s, call center equipment and speech recognition technology, beginning the transition of Lucent’s technology to Voice over IP, and managing the Lucent sales team for their top 1000 global accounts.

Kelly Richmond Pope Thursday, February 22, 2024 TBA TBA Kelly Richmond Pope is a professor in the School of Accountancy and MIS at DePaul University, where she teaches forensic accounting, managerial accounting, financial accounting, and ethical leadership. Pope has dedicated her career to confronting the challenges of white-collar crime and is a co-host of the podcast True Crime with Kathy Lake and Kelly Pope on WGN Radio. She is the author of Fool Me Once: Scams, Stories, and Secrets from the Trillion Dollar Fraud Industry. The book will be available for sale at the University Store and at the event.

Jeff Korzenik Wednesday, April 10, 2024 TBA TBA Jeff Korzenik is Chief Economist for Fifth Third Bank, one of the nation's largest commercial banks. He inspires business, nonprofit, and government leaders to consider "second-chance hiring," showing how people with criminal records, recovered addicts, and the long-term unemployed can be not just adequate, but actually superior employees. He is the author of Untapped Talent: How Second Chance Hiring Works for Your Business and the Community. The book will be available for sale at the University Store and at the event.

Previous Speakers

August 23, 2022 - Vernon Smith: Nobel Prize winner in Economics
February 22, 2023 - Cynthia Cooper: WorldCom whistleblower, accountant, and consultant
March 29, 2023 - Jim Fish: President and CEO of Waste Management, Inc
April 11, 2023 - Nicholas Sly: Vice President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City