AI, the Sixth Industrial Revolution?

Rebecca Yeung is a Corporate Vice President at FedEx Corporation and leads Operations Science and Advanced Technology. In her role, she is responsible for driving critical aspects of FedEx’s innovation and transformation strategy including scaling up robotics and automation technology, autonomous vehicles, decision science, and electromobility. She sits on the FedEx Strategic Management Committee, a C-suite leadership group that sets the strategic direction for the enterprise.

Rebecca has learned every aspect of FedEx’s business and network operations in her over twenty-five years at the company. Early in her career, she rotated through various roles including corporate strategy, e-commerce, and international marketing. She then shifted focus to operations and drove the development, adoption, and global institutionalization of FedEx’s Quality Driven Management (QDM) program, which has become a cornerstone of FedEx’s culture and has delivered cost savings, revenue growth, and improved customer experience. Since 2015, she has played a leading role onboarding advanced technologies to solve some of the most pressing business challenges of the enterprise. Rebecca is a three-time winner of the prestigious FedEx Five Star Award.

As an expert in both advanced technology and logistics operations, she frequently speaks at high profile industry forums including World 50, Reuters Momentum, CES, The AI Summit-Silicon Valley, TechCrunch Mobility, MOVE America, and MIT The Engine Tough Tech Summit.

Rebecca joined two public boards in 2023 – Royal Caribbean Group (NYSE: RCL) and Columbus McKinnon (NASDAQ: CMCO), bringing to both her technology and innovation expertise and strategic perspective. She has also previously served as a Board of Director for the Mid-South Food Bank between 2013 and 2022.

Originally from China, Rebecca holds an MBA from the University of Maryland–College Park and a bachelor’s degree from Fudan University.

Paul Romer the Seidner University Professor and founding director of the Center for the Economics of Ideas at the Carroll School of Management—is one of the most influential economists of the 21st century. In four decades as a professional economist, he has addressed a range of abstract and practical questions, typically by re-examining an existing concern from a novel perspective.

Romer’s Ph.D. thesis revisited questions that had been left unresolved by prior work on the determinants of long-run growth. The most important of these was a lack of attention to the difference between two types of economic goods: objects and ideas. Attention to objects leads inevitably to the diminishing returns that Thomas Malthus emphasized. Because ideas are intrinsically associated with increasing returns, they provide a coherent explanation for the persistent, accelerating pattern of human progress. The resulting analysis also reveals the centrality of scale economies in generating gains from trade and facilitating monopolies.

In 2018 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for this work. His Nobel lecture elaborates on the implications of ideas for “The Possibility of Progress.”

Owing to his interest in not just the abstract process of innovation but also the practical details, in 2001, Romer started an educational technology company, Aplia, which showed how online exercises could reinforce classroom education. He sold the company to Cengage Learning in 2007.

In 1993, he co-authored (with George Akerlof) a paper that used the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s to highlight the harm that careless financial deregulation could cause. The paper met with considerable skepticism at the time, but since the financial crisis of 2007-2008, its message has become part of the “accepted wisdom.” The paper is also seen as one of the founding contributions to the area known as Forensic Finance.

After 2007, Romer focused on successful urbanization as a key driver of rapid catch-up growth for poor countries. The importance of this process is particularly clear in China’s rapid growth during the 1990s. Based on the successful urban centers of Hong Kong and Shenzhen, he encouraged policymakers to consider the possibility of starting entirely new “Charter Cities.” He became the founding director of New York University’s Marron Institute for Urban Management and subsequently chief economist at the World Bank. His approach to urban design and form is reflected in his exploration of Black Rock City, which comes into existence each year with a population of 70,000 at the Burning Man Festival in Nevada.

Recently, Romer has revisited the policy challenges created by the novel characteristics of ideas as economic goods. The issue that emerged in the 1990s was the tendency for markets in software and digital services to evolve toward monopoly control, a question he examined in part as a consultant for the US Department of Justice on its antitrust case against Microsoft. Romer has also emphasized the problems created by web business models based on targeted digital advertising, and the threat posed by digital messages of unknown provenance. The initial focus of the new Center for the Economics of Ideas that he is launching at Boston College will be to offer practical solutions that address the need for “Digital Authenticity.” With the tools that the Center will develop, authors and publishers will be able to certify to any reader the integrity of the files they distribute.

Jessica Gelman is an influential leader and innovator in the sports industry, recognized for her role driving the sports analytics movement. She is the CEO and Co-Founder of Kraft Analytics Group (KAGR), a technology, analytics, and strategic services company that helps sports & entertainment organizations optimize their operations and fan engagement through data-driven, customer-centric analytics. KAGR’s clients span all major professional US sports leagues, colleges, and industry leaders.

In addition to her leadership at KAGR, Jessica co-founded in 2006 and continues to co-chair the highly regarded MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference (SSAC), the world’s first and largest analytically focused sports conference that has grown to over 3,000 attendees and regularly sells out. Jessica is a minority partner in the Utah Royals of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) and serves as an alternate governor on the league’s board.

Previously, Jessica led business operations, marketing, & strategy for Kraft Sports & Entertainment (New England Patriots, Gillette Stadium, and New England Revolution) and played professional basketball in Israel. Jessica’s contributions to the sports industry have earned her numerous accolades and awards, including the 2014 Sports Business Journal “Forty under 40,” which recognizes the most promising young executives in sports business under the age of 40. She was also honored as one of the women who are leading and innovating in sports business in the 2012 Sports Business Journal’s “Game Changers” list.

Jessica holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA, cum laude, from Harvard College, where she was chosen as the Harvard Female Athlete of the Year. She was also recognized as an Ivy League Legend of Basketball in 2018 and currently serves as the Treasurer of the Harvard Varsity Club.

Jessica and her wife, Corbin Petro, have a strong commitment to promoting gender equality and diversity in all aspects of their lives. They are the proud parents of two sons and reside in the greater Boston area.