Ayelet Israeli

HBS Marvin Bower Associate Professor

Ayelet Israeli is the Marvin Bower Associate Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School Marketing Unit. She teaches the E-Commerce: Strategy, Growth, and Analytics course in the MBA elective curriculum, the Data Driven Marketing course in the Harvard Business Analytics Program, and in various Executive Education programs. She has previously taught the Marketing course in the first year MBA required curriculum.

In her research, Ayelet studies omni-channel and e-commerce markets. In particular, she focuses on pricing, channel management, online marketing, and marketing analytics. Her research has been published in leading marketing journals including Marketing Science and Journal of Marketing Research. Her dissertation won the 2014 INFORMS Society for Marketing Science Doctoral Dissertation Proposal Award, and she was named a finalist for the 2018 and the 2019 Frank M. Bass Award. Her work has been cited by The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, MSN Money, and Harvard Business Review.

Ayelet received her PhD in marketing from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. She holds an MBA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she also earned her MSc and BSc in computer science. In addition to her academic experience, Ayelet served as a lieutenant in the Intelligence Corps of the Israeli Defense Forces and worked as an engineer at Israel Aerospace Industries and at Intel Corporation in Israel.

Speaker

Julie Bornstein

Founder and CEO of THE YES

Julie Bornstein is the Founder and CEO of THE YES, an AI-driven shopping platform that launched in 2020. Prior to THE YES, Julie was the COO of Stitch Fix, helping to scale the business to $1B. Before Stitch Fix, Julie had established herself as a leader in e-commerce and digital innovation, first through helping to build Nordstrom.com, then by growing Urban Outfitters into an online leader in Specialty retail and ultimately, leading Sephora to become the gold standard of multi-channel retail by innovating its web and mobile experiences and launching its Beauty Insider loyalty program. Julie received a BA and MBA from Harvard, and currently sits on the boards of Redfin, WW, and Sweet Green.

Moderator

Ali Amarsy (PLDA '16)

SVP, Global Strategy Lead, Publicis Commerce & co-Vice President Entrepreneurship (Alumni Startups), HBSCNY

Ali leads Strategy globally for Publicis Commerce. In a past life as an entrepreneur, his AI startup was acquired in 2019. He has also worked 14 years at Leo Burnett and Publicis Groupe in the US and Middle East. Ali’s expertise is in taking ideas with potential for significant economic impact and packaging them for people to rally behind.