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Grasshopper
May 23, 2019 @ 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm
Data-Driven Business Strategy, IT Commoditization, Endurance Sport, and Other Matters
Randy Kirk, Executive Vice President and Chief Scientist at Direct Supply, will join Grasshopper Co-founder Kathleen Gallagher in a fireside chat for a wide-ranging technical discussion touching on data-driven business strategy, considerations when adding data-driven algorithms to legacy capabilities, implications of the commoditization of computer hardware and services on startups and other businesses, and the peculiar challenges of managing complex systems and technologies over time.
About Randy: Following a college internship at Cray Research, Randy joined Direct Supply in September 1987 as a technology intern. He became a senior technologist and ultimately Direct Supply’s first CIO. Randy helped build Direct Supply’s eCommerce business DSSI which he then led for nearly 11 years. For the past decade, Randy stepped back from DSSI to engaged in a variety of future focused research and advocacy activities. In his current role as EVP & Chief Scientist, Randy advocates for data-driven capabilities and business strategy both inside and outside Direct Supply. Randy earned a BS in Business and Computer Systems at MSOE University. He grew up on a dairy farm in central Wisconsin, is happily married with three adult children, enjoys long-distance bicycle touring, and is (as he puts it) hopelessly Lutheran.
