The future of digital platforms
Design, Impact, Transformation
24th November 2021
24th November 2021
An initiative by Launchworks & Co
Platforms and their ecosystems are now part of our daily lives. They are redefining the way we work, the way we learn, how we innovate and how we collaborate. As a community of platform leaders, how do we ensure that the full potential of these digital ecosystems is realised for all?
What is Platform Leaders?
Platform Leaders brings together entrepreneurs, policy makers, academics and practitioners to exchange insights and best practices on the future of digital platforms and ecosystems. These communities don’t always talk to each other, yet are collectively building the platform economy. Platform Leaders provides strategic insights into key topics and allow experts to share complementary perspectives to shape the debate so that the potential of digital markets can be unlocked for all.
Chris Tsakalakis
Chris Tsakalakis
Chris Tsakalakis is the CEO of Kiva, an international nonprofit that crowdfunds loans for underserved people in over 70 countries. Chris has been a technology CEO and advisor for more than 25 years with experience developing and leading consumer technology businesses.
Before Kiva, Chris was the CEO of Vivino, the world's largest online wine marketplace and most downloaded wine app. At Vivino, Chris' team grew wine sales 2.3x in 2 years.
Before Vivino, Chris was as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Benchmark Capital. Prior to that, Chris served as President of StubHub, the world's largest online ticket marketplace. Under his nearly 8 years of leadership, StubHub grew the value of tickets sold from $400 million to $3.2 billion while doubling customer satisfaction and increasing brand awareness by over 50%. Because of StubHub’s influence on the entertainment industry, Chris was named to the Sports Business Journal’s 2011, 2012 and 2013 lists of the 50 most influential people in the sports business, the Billboard 2012 and 2013 Power 100 lists and the 2010 and 2011 Huffington Post Sports Game Changer lists.
Chris led the acquisition of StubHub by eBay and began running StubHub in 2007, when the acquisition was finalized. Chris was an eBay Marketplaces executive from 2003 to 2014. Prior to joining eBay, Chris was a managing partner at Trefo, a consulting firm focused on high-technology startup companies. Prior to Trefo, he held management positions at two e-commerce startups, and was also a consultant with Bain & Company.
Chris graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is chairman of the board of the Western States Region of the American Heart Association and in his spare time is a fitness, cooking and automotive enthusiast.
Jennifer Schenker
Jennifer Schenker
Jennifer L. Schenker, an award-winning journalist, has been covering the global tech industry from Europe since 1985, working full-time, at various points in her career for the Wall Street Journal Europe, Time Magazine, International Herald Tribune, Red Herring and BusinessWeek. After leaving BusinessWeek Schenker founded Informilo, a U.K.-based media company that published print magazines about the global tech sector. She is currently the founder and editor-in-chief of The Innovator, a global subscription newsletter about the digital transformation of business (www.innovator.news). Jennifer was voted one of the 50 most inspiring women in technology in Europe in 2015 and 2016 and was named in Forbes 2018 list of 30 women leaders disrupting tech in France. She has been a World Economic Forum Tech Pioneers judge for 20 years. She lives in Paris and has dual U.S. and French citizenship.
Christoph Heyn
Christoph Heyn
Christoph Heyn is Global Vice President, Digital Product Management at IKEA. He’s accountable for some of the largest growth drivers in IKEA's digital customer experience and product ambitions, such as Remote Sales, Customer Support, Circularity, B2B, Food as well as Retail, Home and Financial Services. Christoph has a wealth of experience in developing digital and mobile products from his previous experience at Capital One, Marriott, and the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company.
Stefan Hunt
Stefan Hunt
Stefan Hunt is the Chief Data and Technology Insight Officer at the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, having joined in 2018. He founded and leads a department of nearly 50 ‘technologists’ across the disciplines of data science, data engineering, technology insight, behavioural science and digital forensics. The department works across the CMA with a significant focus on large digital cases, the prospective regulation of digital markets and the development and deployment of bespoke technology. The department’s work includes assembling rich datasets, using and analysing algorithms, and writing software.
He is an Honorary Professor in economics at University of Nottingham, has a PhD in economics from Harvard University and has a bachelor’s in experimental psychology from University of Cambridge. Prior to the CMA he led related analytical capabilities at the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority.
Tobias Kretschmer
Dr. Tobias Kretschmer
Dr. Tobias Kretschmer is Professor of management at the Munich School of Management, where he is the head of the Institute for Strategy, Technology and Organisation. Professor Kretschmer’s research interests include competitive strategy, network industries, organisation design, and applied industrial organisation.
Benoit Reillier
Benoit Reillier
Benoit Reillier specialises in strategy and corporate development for innovative high growth companies and platform businesses/ecosystems. He has been advising the boards and top management teams of many blue chip companies as well as regulators and Governments for more than 20 years. Prior to founding Launchworks Benoit was Director of Economics and Regulation at KPMG where he focused on Telecommunications, Media and Technology clients globally. Benoit is a guest lecturer in a number of top business and engineering schools and is in charge of the executive Platform Strategy module of the HEC Paris MBA. He is a graduate from IMT Business School in Paris and holds Master degrees in Management, Economics and Law. Benoit is also a graduate from Columbia University in New York and London Business School (MBA).
He is the co-author of Platform Strategy: How to unlock the power of communities and networks to grow your business.
Dr. Marie Taillard
Marie TAILLARD
Professor, ESCP Business School
Marie Taillard is L’Oréal Professor of Creativity Marketing and Associate Dean of Executive Education (UK) at ESCP Business School. She teaches across a wide range of graduate and executive programmes including customised programmes for global corporate partners in sectors ranging from technology and pharmaceuticals to beauty, luxury, and fast-moving consumer goods.
Professor Taillard is also a certified Executive Coach and works with senior executives from around the world.
Prior to starting her academic career, Professor Taillard held senior marketing positions in the travel and hospitality sectors in the United States. She holds a BA and an MA in Linguistics from the University of Southern California, an MBA from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business, and a PhD in Linguistics from University College London.
As a social scientist with a focus on language, culture and cognition, Professor Taillard conducts cross-disciplinary research that ranges from marketing and consumer behaviour to creativity, organisational behaviour, change management and digital transformation. Her work has been selected for presentation and publication in the most prestigious international marketing and management conferences and journals.
Professor Taillard brings innovative pedagogical approaches to the classroom and blends professional experience and academic thought leadership in her teaching.
Professor Taillard is the co-author of “Digital Makeover, How Global Beauty Giant L’Oréal Put People First in Driving Digital Transformation” (Wiley, 2021).
Professor Taillard is a citizen of France and the USA, and lives primarily in London with her husband, an independent film producer.
Thibault Remy
Thibault Remy
Graduating from HEC in 2008, Thibault Remy started his career at BMW France working on the identification of new sites and distribution centres. He continued his career in New York, where he worked on the creation of two companies in the luxury sector and then joined Ineum Consulting.
Thibault joined Meilleurs Agents as CFO in 2010 a year into the company’s creation when there were just twenty employees. In October 2020, he succeeded Sébastien de Lafond as CEO of Meilleurs Agents. Meilleurs Agents is now part of Aviv Group, subsidiary of Axel Springer Group that acquired the company in 2019 for €200m. It is still experiencing a very strong development with over 30% top line annual growth in 3 European countries & more than 400 employees.
Laure Claire Reillier
Laure C Reillier
Laure Claire Reillier is Co-founder and COO of Launchworks & Co, the leading experts for designing and scaling marketplaces & platforms. Formerly a senior exec at eBay Europe, she has 20 years’ experience in developing, managing and marketing products and services for digital, e-commerce, and platform companies. Laure Claire was appointed in 2019 as one of the 8 experts on digital platforms at the World Economic Forum. She is also the co-author of Platform Strategy: How to unlock the power of communities and networks to grow your business.
Louise Plantin
Louise Plantin
Louise Plantin is an illustrator. She speaks through her drawings.
Louise studied illustration and comic art at the École Estienne in Paris and at the École des Beaux Arts in Angoulême. She works with large companies, start-ups and publishing houses.
Joost Rietveld
Joost Rietveld
Joost Rietveld is an Assistant Professor of Strategic Management at the UCL School of Management, University College London. His research interests are at the intersection of technology strategy and innovation management. His work seeks to understand how inter-organisational dynamics, including platform-complementor relationships, alliances, and mergers and acquisitions, affect product-level outcomes. He is also interested in how digitisation facilitates new and innovative ways of doing business including the freemium and platform-based business models. He has done extensive research in the video game industry after having worked as a strategic manager and consultant for several years prior to entering academia.
Adam Cohen
Adam Cohen
Adam Cohen is Director of Economic Policy at Google. Prior to joining Google in 2010, he was an economics correspondent for Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal, based in London and Brussels.
Adam has an AB from Harvard University and an MSc from the London School of Economics
3:30PM – 3:35PM
WELCOME TALK
Introducing Platform Leaders.
3:35PM – 4:20PM
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AND PLATFORMS
In this panel, we will explore what platform models mean for digital transformation and what it takes to pivot to a platform or successfully launch a platform to complement an existing business. In both cases platforms are rewriting the rules of the game and help digitalise entire industries.
4:20PM – 5:05PM
PLATFORMS AS CHOICE ARCHITECTS
Choice architecture is an increasingly important way of framing decisions and nudging behaviours. Default settings, online and off line, are far from neutral and shape context and behaviour. Yet too much choice is also unhelpful to consumers. In fact, one of the value-adding roles of platforms is ‘curation’, either directly or through quality signals and reputation tools attributing scores/stars to participants so that choosing what to buy, read or do is easier and informed. In this panel, that brings together practitioners, policy makers and academics, we’ll discuss how digital platforms can become better choice architects.
5:05PM – 5:25PM
KEYNOTE
This session will explore how not for profit platforms like Kiva, the microfinance social impact platform, can generate positive outcomes such as financial inclusion. Chris will also discuss the increasingly important social and economic role played by platforms in a range of sectors and geographies.
5:25PM – 5:30PM
CONFERENCE WRAP UP
Closing remarks and key insights from the event by our conference co-chair.
The event will be illustrated live with drawings from Louise Plantin.