Stay tuned while we confirm additional guest speakers for this conference. We will add their biographies in the coming weeks, so please check back soon!
Jon Zieger, co-founder and former Executive Director, Responsible Innovation Lab
Jon Zieger is co-founder and former Executive Director of Responsible Innovation Labs, an independent nonprofit organizing the venture capital and startup community to create a better technology industry. Prior to RIL, Jon was the General Counsel and Global Head of Public Policy for Stripe, and held a variety of other senior legal positions at Microsoft. Mr. Zieger is an active angel investor and advisor for dozens of startups.
Minu Kumar, Ph.D., Professor of Marketing and Founder-Director of the Responsible Innovation and Entrepreneurship (RI&E) Research Initiative
Minu Kumar is a Professor of Marketing at San Francisco State University (SFSU) and is the Founder-Director of the Responsible Innovation and Entrepreneurship (RI&E) Research Initiative. He also serves as the Associate Editor of the Journal of Product Innovation Management. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy from the Government College of Pharmacy (Bangalore University, 1996), a Master in Business Administration (Concentration in Pharmaceutical Marketing, 2002), and a Ph.D. in Marketing (minor: pharmaceutical marketing, 2008) from the University of Mississippi. His primary scholarly interest lies in the area of Innovation, New Product Design & Development, and Entrepreneurship. Professor Kumar has published in journals such as the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Consumer Psychology, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Product Innovation Management among others. His work has directly helped the university raise several millions of dollars for I&E programs. He has also worked for or consulted with firms such as Barilla, SAP, Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals, Novo Nordisk Pharmaceuticals, Schering Plough Pharmaceuticals, Medtronic, Glaxo Smithkline, among others on product design & development, sales, and marketing projects.
Q Hamirani, Chief People Officer at HighLevel
Q is a mission-driven Chief People Officer, entrepreneur, and advisor to founders, boards, CXOs, and VCs. With expertise spanning startups, venture growth, private equity, and Fortune 100 companies across 25+ countries, he specializes in people strategy and business operations. Currently, Q is the Chief People Officer at HighLevel, a rapidly growing SaaS platform with over 1,000 global employees. Previously, he led People and Communication at Paper, a Series D edtech company, and played a pivotal role in Airbnb’s people operations during its IPO, pandemic responses, and the creation of its Live & Work Anywhere program.
Q’s achievements include pioneering Airbnb’s Digital Nomad program and establishing a global Center of Excellence to drive innovation and growth. Passionate about personal growth, travel, and the arts, he supports emerging creatives through his record label and film production ventures, embodying a commitment to leadership, culture, and impactful change.
Bahar Javadi, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Management, San Francisco State University
Bahareh Javadizadeh, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of management at San Francisco State University. She specializes in Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior. Her research explores the individual and organizational outcomes of perceived identity threat in the workplace, the creation of façades of conformity as a coping mechanism, and the buffering role of the climate of authenticity. Moreover, Bahareh has an interest in exploring glass ceiling beliefs among women and minorities as well as civility in the workplace. Alongside her research, Bahareh has taught several courses in Human Resource Management, Organizational Behavior, and Teamwork. In her teaching, she centers her effort on the wholesale establishment of a challenging, engaging, and thought-provoking environment in which students are continually confronted with provocative questions and tasked with applying course materials to real-world examples.
Neil Goldberg, Founder Praxis Design
Neil Goldberg has been at the forefront of Human Centered Design since the 1980s - via his early career at the workplace innovator Herman Miller, at his Silicon Valley innovation agency Praxis Design and in a series of ventures in the co-working, digital photography and solar power industries. Along the way he has made contributions to life-patterns bound in ergonomic work-places, turn-by-turn navigation, video-conferencing, mobile computing, mobile medical imaging, co-working, social photography and other emergent product systems that have become commonplace. He has taught product design and human centered design-thinking at leading universities including here at SF State in both the Design and Business schools. He has developed and currently teaches a course in Design Thinking for Social Change at the Graduate Theological Union and Pacific School of Religion. There he is engaged in promoting conversation between designers and religious scholar to explore ways in which the world’s wisdom traditions can inform industrial creative praxis, and vice versa.
Ruby Lee, Ph.D., Professor and Director of International Programs, Florida State University
Dr. Ruby (Pui Wan) Lee is a professor in the Dr. Persis E. Rockwood School of Marketing at Florida State University’s College of Business. She also serves as the director of the college’s International Programs managing global student exchanges, faculty-led study aboard programs and the creation of international non-degree seeking student programs.
Over the past 10 years of her career, Lee has received numerous research awards from prestigious organizations such as the Marketing Science Institute, Penn State University's ISBM, and the American Marketing Association, and she has published her work in premier journals such as Journal of Marketing, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Decision Sciences, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of World Business and Journal of International Marketing, among others. Lee serves on multiple journal editorial boards, including the Journal of Product Innovation Management, Journal of World Business, Journal of International Marketing, Industrial Marketing Management and among others.
Lee received her bachelor’s degree in social work from the University of Hong Kong and her master’s degree in marketing from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her Ph.D. is in marketing from Washington State University.
Carsten Schultz, Ph.D., Co-Founder of Kiel Institute for Responsible Innovation and Professor of Technology Management, Kiel University
Carsten Schultz is Professor for Technology Management at Kiel University since 2012. He is also a Co-Founder of the Kiel Institute for Responsible Innovation. From 2008 to 2011, he held the junior professorship for Management of Service Innovations and Technology Transfer endowed by Deutsche Telekom AG at the Technical University of Berlin. In 2004 - 2008 he headed the Siemens Center for Knowledge Interchange, the strategic partnership between Siemens and TU Berlin. He is committed to promoting knowledge and technology transfer as a member of the scientific board of the Center for Entrepreneurship at Kiel University, as a member of the supervisory board of the Kiel Science Center and as head of the Innovation Management sub-project of the Mittelstand-Digital Zentrum Schleswig-Holstein. Carsten Schultz is also member of the supervisory board of the University Medical Center Greifswald and a member of the scientific advisory board of the German Foundation for the Chronically Ill. He has published in peer-reviewed journals such as Research Policy, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Health Policy, and IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, among many others. He is a member of the editorial review boards of the Journal of Product Innovation Management, the Journal Creativity Innovation Management and the Health Care Management Review. Carsten Schultz is the author of numerous publications in international journals and, among others, of the textbook Innovation Management (Hauschildt et al. 7th edition, 2022).
Kristina Nickel, Ph.D., Post-Doctoral Researcher, Kiel University
Kristina Nickel (Dr. oec. troph.) is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Marketing and the Department of Technology Management at Kiel University since January 2024. Prior to her work at the Department of Marketing/Technology Management, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of A&F Marketing - Consumer Psychology, Institute of Agricultural Economics, Kiel University. Her research interests include design research, cognitive psychology, gender studies, and responsible innovation. Her work has appeared in academic journals such as Journal of Business Ethics, International Marketing Review, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Consumer Behaviour, and International Journal of Research in Marketing. She has had conference proceedings and presentations accepted at AMA, ACR, AWBR, EMAC, and PDMA.
Achim Walter, Ph.D., Professor Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, Kiel University
Prof. Dr. Achim Walter holds the Chair of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management at Kiel University. His research interests include obstacles, key people and forms of cooperation in the innovation process as well as questions relating to academic entrepreneurship and technology transfer from public research institutions to industry.
Lufei Ruan, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Accounting, San Francisco State University
Nara Jeong, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Management, San Francisco State University
Nara Jeong, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Strategy and Sustainability in the Management Department at the Lam Family College of Business, San Francisco State University. She serves on the board of the Center of Ethical & Sustainable Business and is the Associate Director of Student Success for the Lam-Larsen Initiative at the College. Additionally, she is the Faculty Director of the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Pitch Competition at the university. Dr. Jeong’s research focuses on ethical decision-making, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), ESG, diversity, and social entrepreneurship. She earned her Ph.D. in Management from Washington State University, specializing in Strategic Management.
Ian Sinapuelas, Ph.D., Professor of Marketing and Associate Director of Research Programs for the RI&E Research Initiative
Ian Sinapuelas is the Associate Director of Research Programs for the RI&E Research Initiative and is a Professor of Marketing at the LFCoB. Ian was awarded a Ph.D. in marketing from Purdue University in May 2007. Professor Sinapuelas has published in journals such as the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Consumer Marketing, and Journal of Product and Brand Management among others. His teaching experience includes MBA-level marketing management at the German International Graduate School of Management and Administration in Hanover, Germany, as well as several business courses during his time at Purdue.
Chenwei Li, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Management and Associate Director of Engagement for the RI&E Research Initiative
Chenwei Li is the Associate Director of Engagement for the RI&E Research Initiative and is an Associate Professor of Management at the LFCoB. Previously, she served on the faculty of the Doermer School of Business at the Purdue University Fort Wayne for three years. Chenwei received her Ph.D. with a concentration in Organizational Behavior from the University of Alabama. Her primary research interests focus on leadership, employee voice and team creativity. Her work has been published in the management field’s premier journals such as the Journal of Management, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Business Ethics, among others. Chenwei received the 2020 Ascendant Scholar Award from the Western Academy of Management. She has served as an ad-hoc reviewer for management journals such as Journal of Management, Journal of Business Ethics, Management and organization review etc. Chenwei teaches Leadership and Influence Skills as well as Human Resource Management courses for MBA and undergraduate programs. She has also led leadership training workshops for managers of different levels in various companies and cultural settings.