Kilts Center for Marketing

I had the privilege of organizing and hosting the inaugural Perplexity Product Pitch Competition 2024 at Chicago Booth as The University of Chicago Booth School of Business's Perplexity Campus Strategist alongside Isis Decrem, bringing together innovation and entrepreneurial spirit from across our university community. The competition challenged students to think like product managers, developing innovative features and solutions for Perplexity's search platform. Participants dove deep into user pain points and market opportunities, presenting creative solutions to enhance the search experience and expand into new markets. The event was a resounding success, bringing together talented students from across the University of Chicago. Our top 10 finalists selected by the Perplexity team delivered outstanding presentations last Friday, Nov 22nd showcasing innovative solutions and entrepreneurial spirit. 🏆 Congratulations to our winning team: • Nicolas Ramirez Borches • Tomás Soracco • Yonatan Zemlyak who secured the grand prize of $1,200 with their exceptional pitch! A heartfelt thank you to our distinguished judges from Perplexity: • Ali Abbas Panju (Head of Special Projects) • Greg Feingold (Leading Community Growth) Your expertise, thoughtful feedback, and dedication in evaluating each presentation made this event truly special. We deeply appreciate you taking the time to engage with our students and share your valuable insights. Special appreciation to our amazing partners at Booth who made this event possible: • Kilts Center for Marketing for their unwavering support and marketing this event at Booth • Shwetha Krishnamurthy (Booth AI Group Chair) • Shalini Suresh Kumar (Booth Technology Group Chair) Your collaboration in marketing and organizing this event was instrumental in its success. Here's to fostering more innovation and entrepreneurship at Chicago Booth! 💡 #ChicagoBooth #Innovation #Perplexity #ProductManagement #AI #StudentInnovation #BusinessSchool

What an incredible week at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business's Product Week! From November 4th to 9th, the Product Management Club brought together a fantastic group of product enthusiasts, industry leaders, and future innovators. A huge THANK YOU to all our phenomenal speakers who shared their insights and experiences: - E-commerce: Javier Mozo Olea, Lucy Cheng - Tech: Shikha Garg, Juan Mejia - General: Anshul Kummar, Humble Mohammed - Healthcare: Jami Hegrenes, Ivan Chen, and Joey Panella - Social: Justin Samaniego, Yaa Boakye, MBA, RDN, LDN, CPT, Carlos Patiño, and J.D. Kieffer. Your expertise and passion truly inspired us! A special shoutout to our BPMC co-chairs: Kashyap Kabra, Bruno Graça Coelho, Rohit Raut, Sid Dasari P.E. PMP, Udit R., and Nate Burger. Your hard work and dedication made this event possible. We also want to thank the Booth community— the Kilts Center for Marketing (Samreen Imami) and Booth Student Life (Anna Chalfin)—for your unwavering support. To all the volunteers (India Johnstone, Nick Thudi, Upesh Patil and Abishek Ravi Krishnamoorthy), your behind-the-scenes efforts did not go unnoticed. And, of course, to all the attendees, thank you for your enthusiastic participation! Your engaging questions and discussions made Product Week a resounding success. #Productmanagement #Booth #Amazon #Google #TikTok #Microsoft #Salesforce #Paylocity #Kilts

What does it take to excel in tech product interviews? Booth students got the answers last week! The Kilts Center and Booth Technology Group partnered to host an intensive Tech PM/PMM Interview Prep workshop, connecting Booth students with accomplished alumni for hands-on case practice and invaluable industry insights. We’re very grateful to the alumni volunteers who dedicated their Saturday to mentoring future tech professionals: Umang Agarwal, Tess Belton, Uday Chaudhary, JC Chung, Jenny Czaja, David Hanna, Fiona Kennedy, Sumit Nema, Matt Reidy (Kessler), Jaqueline Sanches, Chirag Sangani, Andrew Schwartz, and Sean Wareham. Special thanks to BTG co-chairs Shalini Suresh Kumar, Bruno Vasconcelos, and Teruhisa Yamamoto for their leadership and dedication in making this event a success. And a big shout-out to our fantastic student and staff volunteers: Shaila Bolger, Kira Cárdenas, Holly Holcomb, Murad Jalilzade, Erin Rossi, Mohini Vembusubramanian, and Teruhisa Yamamoto. It was inspiring to see students sharpen their case-solving skills, gain insider insights into interviewing for tech roles, and build lasting connections with alumni and peers. #KiltsCenter #ProductManagement #TechCareers #BoothAlumni

The 2024 Kilts Center Case Competition showcased the incredible talent and dedication of Booth students, who took on the challenge of how to enhance and reposition an existing product to a new target audience. With only a week to prepare, 11 finalist teams went to work on solving the business challenge. On the big day, each student team provided different data-driven recommendations and innovative solutions. Special thanks to Microsoft for sponsoring the event and setting an exciting case! We’re also grateful to our judging panel—Booth alumni and Microsoft leaders Michael Harbut ('10) and Nayana Singh ('10), Professor Christopher Krohn, and Kilts Center Executive Director Katie Claussen Bell ('23)—for their thoughtful feedback and commitment to supporting our students’ growth. Congratulations to the winning team, Teams & Co., whose strategic use of large language models with a customer-centric approach earned them the top prize. 1st - Teams & Co - Ananya Gupta, Ju-Yeon Katherine Shim, Shwetha Krishnamurthy, Suzanne Akabane 2nd - Big Team Energy - Kathryn Khaw, Ziyang Chen, Kira Cárdenas, Teruhisa Yamamoto 3rd - The Four Marketeers - Lorena Prates, Daniel Pacifico, Álvaro Mesa Mascayano, Kuan-lin Liu A big thank you to all involved for making this year’s competition a success! We are proud to see the Booth community pushing boundaries in data-driven innovation. #ChicagoBooth #Microsoft #KiltsCenter #CaseCompetition

This past week, I had the privilege of participating in the Kilts Center for Marketing Case Competition in partnership with Microsoft. Together with my team, The Four Marketeers (Lorena Prates, Kuan-lin Liu, and Álvaro Mesa Mascayano), I tackled a real-world case, strategizing how to create and launch a new product to meet customer needs. It was a hands-on, crash course in Product Management and Marketing. From conducting research and online surveys to interviewing SMBs around Chicago, testing our product hypothesis, and formulating a go-to-market strategy, we crafted a proposal we genuinely believe could improve customers' lives. Thank you to the competition judges (Michael Harbut, Nayana Singh, Katie Claussen Bell, and Christopher Krohn) and the Kilts Center for this incredible experience. In the end, we were thrilled to place third in the competition—a validation that we were on the right track to building something impactful!

📣 CALL FOR PAPERS 📣 I'm excited to announce that together with Malika Korganbekova, we are organizing the New Data for Consumer Insights conference next spring. The conference will be held at the The University of Chicago Booth School of Business on May 30-31, 2025. We aim to bring together scholars across fields who use Machine Learning, NLP, and other tools to extract valuable insights from new types of data, including: - unstructured data - clickstream data - data generated by AI. We invite both methodological and empirical submissions. Submission Deadline: January 6, 2025. Submit here: https://lnkd.in/ggr4jD7u We are also thrilled to have Susan Athey and Greg Lewis as keynote speakers. Stay tuned for more details on registration and feel free to share this with anyone who might be interested. For more information visit: https://lnkd.in/gwFQ4-NU

I am thrilled to share that our team ranked third in the Microsoft Case Challenge, organized by the Kilts Center for Marketing! Over an intense week of immersion, collaboration, and creative problem-solving, we crafted a strategic value proposition and product positioning for one of Microsoft’s flagship solutions. I couldn’t be prouder of what we achieved together and am grateful for the chance to work with such talented teammates: Álvaro Mesa, Daniel Pacifico, and Kuan-lin Liu. Thank you, Katie Claussen Bell and the Kilts team for putting this incredible experience together, Michael Harbut and Nayana Singh for trusting us with this challenge, and Christopher Krohn for the invaluable feedback!

Want to understand why CMO tenure rates are shrinking and how marketing can become more accountable? Jean-Pierre Dube, Kilts Distinguished Service Professor of Marketing, will host an insightful lifelong learning workshop exclusively for alumni at our Rothman, ’77 London Campus. In this interactive session, "The Future of the CMO", Professor Dubé will explore how the Chicago Booth Approach to marketing can help CMOs succeed. Through the lens of advertising investments, discover how marketing leaders can better align with CFOs and drive measurable growth. 🕒 December 2 | 3 - 7 p.m. Includes networking reception. 📍 Rothman, '77 London Campus Space is limited. Secure your spot now >> https://lnkd.in/gkVhiw-7 Supported by the Fred G. Steingraber/Kearney Endowment. #ChicagoBooth #MarketingLeadership #CMO #KiltsCenter #LifelongLearning

Does ethical brand messaging influence actual sales? Despite many consumers’ stated willingness to pay more for sustainable products, new research tells a different story. In a study of 24,000 shoppers using Numerator data housed at the Kilts Center, Chicago Booth professors Maximilian Muhn and Thomas Rauter revealed a striking gap between environmental values and actual spending habits. This research challenges conventional wisdom about conscious consumerism. Unpack the insights here: https://lnkd.in/eufw_G4g #ConsumerInsights #DataAnalytics #ChicagoBooth

In 2 minutes ⌚ the majestic Mason Yu and I discuss how #productmarketing strategy & tactics become commonplace pretty quickly with new technologies 🤖 like #ai - so we need to go back to #firstprinciples - move away from controlled chaos 🤹 and bring a method to the madness 😇. Based in #chicago 🍕, Mason is #marketing Lead at MarketerHire and is an #mba candidate 👨🎓 at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business - my alma mater.