Wolcott is Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at Booth. Additionally, he is Adjunct Professor in Executive Education at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University and formerly a visiting professor at the Keio Business School (Japan). Wolcott won Teacher of the Year from Kellogg's EMBA program in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2017. He serves on the advisory board for the Open Innovation Lab of Norway; H-Farm, the leading digital innovation ecosystem in Italy. Wolcott is also a managing partner with Clareo, an innovation strategy consultancy serving senior executives at global corporations such as Exelon, BHP, Griffith Foods, Zurich Insurance, Owens Corning and others.

Wolcott is a regular contributor to Forbes regarding the impact of technology change on business, leadership and society. His book with Dr. Michael Lippitz, Grow From Within: Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation (McGraw-Hill, 2010) shares a decade of research and has been published in Chinese and Japanese. Wolcott's work has appeared in MIT Sloan Management Review, strategy+business, The Harvard Business Review, TheHill.com, Quartz.com, The Wall Street Journal, Advertising Age, Business Week, The Financial Times (European Edition), The New York Times and numerous overseas publications. He is a frequent speaker at events worldwide.

In 2003, Wolcott founded the Kellogg Innovation Network (KIN), a network of senior executives dedicated to driving sustainable innovation, now an independent organization known as The World Innovation Network (TWIN). TWIN's annual summit, TWIN Global, takes place in late Spring and includes leaders from around the world who collaborate around issues of significance for their organizations and for humanity. Wolcott is also an active angel investor in enterprises such as crowd funding leader Indiegogo, student loan innovator Lumni, legal documentation platform Page Vault, healthcare data and analytics providers SA Ignite and Clearcare Online (exited to Battery Ventures in 2016), cyber security provider MagicCube and international art exposition EXPO Chicago.

Wolcott received a BA, European and Chinese History; and an MS and Ph.D., Industrial Engineering & Management Science, Northwestern University.

Marc J. Knez studies strategic and organizational decision making, strategic planning, and market analysis. His academic research evolved from a focus on applying game theory and decision theory to strategic decisionmaking to a focus on market analysis, strategy development, and organizational structure. His work has appeared in the Harvard Business Review, the Journal of Business, and the Journal of Labor Economics. Among his articles are "Across the Board Incentives," Harvard Business Review (February 2002); "Direct and Indirect Bargaining Costs and the Scope of the Firm," the Journal of Business (April 2002); and "Firm-wide Incentives and Mutual Monitoring At Continental Airlines," Journal of Labor Economics (October 2001). All were written with Duncan Simester. He also has published in the Financial Times Mastering Strategy Series. Titles include "Game Theory in the Real World" and "Vertical Integration: Make or Buy Decisions" both written with Robert Gertner and published in November 1999.

Knez has been a full-time management consultant working with clients in financial services, telecommunications equipment, hospitality, and consumer products. During his time as a consultant, he was a senior vice president of Sibson Consulting and a Principal at the Capital H Group. He is currently on the board of directors of the Metropolitan Capital Bank.

He believes his past experience provides him with the ability to bring both perspectives to the classroom. He specializes in bridging the gap between academic research and applied decisionmaking in the context of strategic planning and technology strategy. He also has brought this perspective to executive education. He has taught executives at the Financial Management Program at General Electric, and the McKinsey & Co. mini-MBA program, as well as conducted customized education for Northrop Grumman, MTV Networks Asia, Metropolitan Life, and the William Wrigley Jr. Company.

Knez earned a bachelor's degree in economics at the University of Arizona and a PhD in decision sciences at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1991.

When not teaching or conducting research, Knez enjoys spending time with his family and playing golf.

James Janega is Managing Partner at Growth Innovation Strategy Group (GIS). GIS helps organizations see how the future will develop around them, find wins in changing environments, and build growth paths using agile strategies and better innovations.

Janega specializes in bridging the gap between strategy and innovation, particularly identifying growth opportunities and developing products and services that serve emerging market segments.

He has taught executives and worked with consulting clients around the world, serving sectors that include consumer goods and electronics, financial services, health care, commercial real estate and insurance, energy, education, and infrastructure. He has advised startups in AI and innovative technologies that include clean tech, precision optics, and quantum hardware.

Janega’s career brings a broad perspective to new activities. His two decades in journalism include 15 years at the Chicago Tribune Media Group. He helped develop the Strategy & Innovation group at Slalom Consulting Chicago, and worked in emerging opportunity areas at Cushman & Wakefield that included managing innovation strategy, new product strategy and development, and new business operations. He has served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence for the EnterpriseWorks incubator at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign since 2015, and is a startup advisor at the Duality quantum accelerator in Chicago.

Janega holds an MBA from Chicago Booth, an MA in public affairs reporting from the University of Illinois at Springfield, and a BA in journalism from Northern Illinois University.

When not teaching or consulting, Janega’s interests include laughing with his wife and their two children, exploring the outdoors, racing in Ironman triathlons, and performing jazz music.

Kristian Hammond, a previous associate professor in Computer Science and founder of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the University of Chicago, research has always been focused on artificial intelligence, machine-generated content, and context-driven information systems. He is the co-founder and chief scientist of Narrative Science, which turns data into actionable stories and insights. He is also a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Northwestern University and received his PhD from Yale University.

Selected Publications:

Please don't Hire a Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer, Harvard Business Review, March 29, 2017

Why this Company will Help Change the Future of Artificial Intelligence, Computer World, February 8, 2017

5 unexpected sources of bias in artificial intelligence, Tech Crunch, December 10, 2016