M-RCBG Senior Fellow-Led Study Group: Eric Salama
Friday, February 12, 12:15-1:15pm
Zoom registration is required. Please use a harvard.edu email if available.
M-RCBG Senior Fellow Eric Salama in discussion with Thomas Wheeler about regulation of big data companies and data privacy.
Tom Wheeler is a businessman, author, and was the 31st Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from 2013 to 2017. He is presently a Senior Fellow at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard Kennedy School and a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He was the co-author of a recent Shorenstein paper recommending a new regulatory agency in US.
Eric and Tom will discuss options for increasing competition in big data and for promoting greater consumer welfare in the near term.
Eric Salama is a global business leader with a track record of transformation. He has recently stepped down as CEO of Kantar, one of the world’s leading research, insight, data and consulting companies after leading its carve-out from WPP and a sale of a majority stake to Bain Capital. During his 18 years as CEO the business grew to over $4bn of revenue, 30k employees, operating in all markets around the world and working with major multinationals and local giants – clients and partners such as Google, Facebook, Alibaba, Globo, BBC, Yilli, ITC, JBS, Coke, Unilever, Loreal, VW, Group M, Omnicom. The business is unique in combining survey and behavioural data at scale around the world and by 2020 had moved from being a collection of agency brands to going to market under a single brand and with a single P&L, Kantar. Prior to Kantar Eric served on the main board of WPP for almost a decade as the CEO of wpp.com and the Head of Strategy, working as part of the team which built it into the largest marketing services company in the world. Eric has served as a Trustee of the British Museum, a Director of UK Government Department DFID and a Governor of Birkbeck College London. On 1st July he will become Chair of leading UK Charity Comic Relief. He has presented extensively around the world in Government and Parliamentary forums, public conferences and client events. He was both a Chairman and a juror at Cannes Lions Festivals of Advertising. He worked for the Labour Party Front Bench Team on Foreign Affairs 1983-6, was appointed by Tony Blair to the UK Government Creative Industries Task Force in 1997 and served as an advisor to Gordon Brown in his roles as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister from 2000 to 2010. While a Senior Fellow at M-RCBG, Eric will conduct work on data usage and data privacy with his project, Shaping the World’s Newest Human Right. His faculty advisor is Jim Waldo, Gordon McKay Professor of the Practice of Computer Science in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard. Email: Ericsalama@hks.harvard.edu