The future of digital platforms
AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
13 November 2024
13 November 2024
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, investors 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.
Last Platform Leaders Event
The last conference on 7 June 2023, with speakers from FARFETCH, the MIT IDE, Dartmouth College, Google, the CMA, BEUC, eBay and Launchworks & Co focused on 3 key themes: Generative AI, Platform Regulation and the Circular Economy. Discover the articles and videos below.
Platforms powering the circular economy
Generative AI is changing the game for platforms
Platform regulation at a crossroads
Platform Leaders Cartoon 7 June 2023
An illustrated summary of Platform Leaders on 7 June 2023 with live scribing from Katie Chappell.
Keynote Prof. Geoff Parker from MIT IDE - 7 June 2023
Geoff Parker, Professor at Dartmouth College & MIT IDE Fellow is in conversation with Platform Leaders Co-Chair Laure Claire Reillier. They discuss how Generative AI will impact platforms.
Platforms and the Circular Economy - 7 June 2023
Elle Tucker, Tom Berry (FARFETCH) and Lucy Peacock (eBay) discuss how platforms can power the circular economy to build sustainable ecosystems.
Full Video 7 June 2023
Watch the 7 June 2023 full video on the Future of Platforms: AI, Regulation and the Circular Economy.
Platform Regulation at a Crossroads - 7 June 2023
This panel, with Richard Feasey (CMA), Vanessa Turner (BEUC), Oliver Bethell (Google), Dr. Euan MacMillan (DMU) explores the challenges with new platform regulation.
Benoit Reillier Closing Remarks - 7 June 2023
Benoit Reillier, Platform Leaders Co-Chair and Launchworks CEO, summarises key insights from the 7 June 2023 event on Generative AI, Platform Regulation and the Circular Economy.
Prof. Geoff Parker
Prof. Geoff Parker
Geoffrey Parker is a professor of engineering at Dartmouth College where he also serves as Director of the Master of Engineering Management Program.
In addition, he is a research fellow and visiting scholar at MIT’s Initiative for the Digital Economy. He received a B.S.E. from Princeton and M.S. and Ph.D. from MIT. Parker has made significant contributions to the field of network economics and strategy as co-developer of the theory of “two-sided” markets. He is co-author of the award-winning book “Platform Revolution.” His current research includes studies of platform business strategy, Internet of Things data governance, and technical/economic systems to integrate distributed energy resources. Parker’s research has been funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the states of Louisiana and New York and numerous corporations. He serves or has served as associate editor at multiple journals and as a National Science Foundation panelist. Parker is a frequent keynote speaker and advises senior leaders on their organizations’ platform strategies. Before attending MIT, he held positions in engineering and finance at GE.
Oliver Bethell
Oliver Bethell
Oliver is Head of Competition EMEA at Google where he leads a large multidisciplinary and cross functional team covering Policy, Legal, Economists, Product, Eng, Comms.
He was previously in private practice at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in Brussels before moving to Google’s in-house team in London in 2008.
Oliver is a graduate of Oxford University, BPP Law School and King's College. He is a member of the Bar of England and Wales.
Oliver was named Competition Individual of the Year, 2018 (Global Counsel Awards); Competition Individual of the Year, 2018 (European Counsel Awards); and Corporate Counsel of the Year, 2012 (Global Competition Review).
Laure Claire Reillier
Laure Claire 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 and Mission BlaBlaCar.
Euan MacMillan
Euan MacMillan
Euan MacMillan is the Director – Digital Markets Unit at the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).
Previously, Euan has held various roles within the UK Government including in Pakistan and DRC for the Department for International Development (DFID), and in London for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) as well as heading the Digital Trade Negotiations at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
Euan holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Strathclyde and an MSc in Economics from the University of Edinburgh.
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 and Mission BlaBlaCar.
Lucy Peacock
Lucy Peacock
Lucy Peacock leads pre-loved fashion at eBay. Since joining eBay almost 2 years ago she has delivered high profile initiatives to change the way people think about pre-loved fashion. From partnering with ITV show Love Island, the launch of the circular innovation fund to partnering with Oxfam to drive charity fashion in London Fashion week, Lucy works closely with fashion brands, small businesses and charities to unlock and power the circular economy.
Prior to joining eBay, Lucy has had a decade-long career working at some of the UK’s biggest fashion brands, including Debenhams, New Look and F&F at Tesco.
Lucy is a mentor for sustainable start – ups for the University of Cambridge and sits on the advisory board for Textiles 2030.
Thomas Berry
Thomas Berry
Tom has been working in business on strategy and sustainability for the past 20 years.
He now leads the Sustainable Business agenda at FARFETCH - a cross-functional program of work designed to help the company succeed commercially whilst also delivering tangible positive social and environmental impact. The work ranges from driving innovation in new circular business models, enabling customers to buy better products, and improving supply chain carbon footprint.
Before FARFETCH, Tom held senior sustainability roles at Kimberly Clark and Innocent Drinks. Prior to that, he managed industry programs for Forum for the Future (in the UK) and The Institute for Sustainable Futures (in Australia) – both leading sustainable development organisations providing strategic advice to business. Before specialising in sustainability Tom spent 3 years as a strategy consultant at Gemini Consulting – a management consultancy based in London.
Eleanor Tucker
Eleanor Tucker
Elle (Eleanor) is a former newspaper and magazine features writer and advertising creative. She worked in award-winning marketing agencies before becoming a writer for world-renowned media groups such as the Guardian and the BBC commentating on health, society, sustainability, tech and lifestyle. She co-founded the first communications agency to focus on the sharing economy, then a trailblazing marketing agency specialising in two-sided marketplaces. Passionate about the potential of online platforms to democratise, empower communities and help us live more sustainably, Elle now speaks, writes and advises on gig and sharing economy models – working internationally in this space helping start-ups and scale-ups to launch, grow and thrive. Originally from Oxford, England, Elle was educated at Edinburgh University in Scotland, where she now lives with her husband and two children.
Richard Feasey
Richard Feasey
Richard is an Inquiry Chair at the Competition and Markets Authority and Senior Adviser at the Centre on Regulation in Europe (CERRE) where he researches digital policy. He left Vodafone in 2013 having been its Group Policy Director for 12 years and has undertaken a variety of advisory roles since then.
Vanessa Turner
Vanessa Turner
Vanessa is Senior Advisor - Competition at The European Consumer Organisation, BEUC.
BEUC represents 46 independent national consumer associations from 32 European countries. The primary task of BEUC is to act as a strong consumer voice in Brussels and to ensure that consumer interests are given their proper weight in all EU policies.
Within BEUC, Vanessa focusses on ensuring that consumer interests are taken into account in European competition policy and key enforcement cases, in particular in Digital Markets and Sustainability. Since September 2020 Vanessa also acts as a non-governmental advisor to the International Competition Network for the European Commission.
Prior to joining BEUC, Vanessa was a Partner in the Competition Practice of Freshfields and Allen & Overy in Brussels (as well as in London and Düsseldorf). In between these roles, she was a Member of the Cabinet of the Commissioner for Competition Policy at the European Commission (responsible for mergers and antitrust cases and policy), Special Advisor to the US FTC in Washington DC, and General Counsel, Company Secretary and Executive Vice President at Visa Europe.
Vanessa has a Law Degree from the University of Surrey, UK, a Masters in European Law from the Institut d’d'études européennes, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. She is a British and German qualified lawyer admitted to the bar in England and Wales, and Düsseldorf. Vanessa also holds a Masters in Psychology from the University of Sussex, UK and is a qualified Executive Coach.
Katie Chappell
Katie Chappell
Katie Chappell is a live event illustration specialist. She speaks through her drawings.
She has scribed for Google, Facebook, Apple, Johnson & Johnson, Penguin Random House, and the United Nations.
Katie has a Master's Degree, Illustration from Edinburgh College of Arts.
3:00PM – 3:05PM
WELCOME TALK
Introducing Platform Leaders.
3:05PM – 3:25PM
KEYNOTE: WILL GENERATIVE AI AUGMENT OR DISRUPT PLATFORMS?
Platforms have long harnessed the power of artificial intelligence… but while AI tech was traditionally used in the background, the launch of OpenAI’s LLM and its competitors, with their generative capabilities, have captured the headlines. How is AI transforming organisations in general and platforms in particular? What are the likely impacts of these changes on talents, strategy, and society at large? How can platforms ethically harness these added capabilities to offer value added services to ecosystem participants?
3:25PM – 4:10PM
PLATFORM REGULATION AT A CROSSROADS
If digital platforms have been able to innovate and scale their businesses largely unencumbered by specific regulations in the past, this is about to change. In Europe two new milestone regulatory packages, the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Market Act (DMA) are now live. In the UK a brand new regulator, the Digital Market Unit (DMU) has been launched to address competition issues in digital markets. Yet new innovations, such as generative AI, are disrupting digital markets at an unprecedented speed. The panel will address a number of questions including: Is there a new regulatory paradigm emerging? How can compliance be managed in such fast changing environments? How can policy makers and platforms develop governance mechanisms that preserve trust for all digital market participants? What will that mean for innovation in digital markets? ...
4:10PM – 4:55PM
HOW CAN PLATFORMS POWER THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY TO BUILD SUSTAINABLE ECOSYSTEMS?
Since the Industrial Revolution, the “Take, Make, Use, Dispose” linear model of economic expansion has dominated our economy. But if we’re to move from linear to circular economies to preserve our planet resources, platform business models, which are circular by nature, should be embraced. Large established companies have embarked on this journey, from reducing clothing waste, giving a second life to electronic equipment etc. But how can circular platforms help us transition towards sustainable ecosystems? How do we win this race against time?
4:55PM – 5:00PM
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 Katie Chappell.
